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[Azkanan]

Now, some of you may recall me making one of these threads about 6 or more months ago. A good number of people responded with their ideals for a game, I responded to each and everyone of them with examples of a game I was making.
I walked away from that with an excellent imbuement of dedication, new ideas and pretty much an improvement on the game.

Now, I wanted to ask you all again in hopes of another shimmy-storm of good responses; The Perfect 2D MMORPG. What is required, in your opinion?

Here is what has already been discussed;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So over on Bay12, I asked them what they would want in a MMORPG. They all answered with what they wanted, then I replied with this:
(It will probably answer a bunch of Questions you have, if any).

Question/Statement:- "No levels. One would have a collection of skills, and the only thing stopping a warrior from learning magic would be time and effort.".Duke 2.0

Yes. From Blacksmithing and Farming, Hunting and Mining, Swordsmanship and Archery, Enchantment and Destruction. Every weapon belongs to a weapon group (Large sword, Two-Handed Hammer, etc) The more you use a certain skill, the more it increases - although, I think we have it planned so that you need to Learn a magic skill, before you can use it, and maybe some sort of "awakening" process to use magic, in a school.
That's just a population control, though. Magic will be very powerful, so we need to make sure it's as rare as it was in the first history of Fantasy.

Question/Statement- "A world large and diverse enough to allow for backwoods areas people rarely go, cities that can actually fit the playerbase. A dynamic country system, where cities can come and go over the course of months." - Duke 2.0

The world map is going to be, and is currently, huge. One province can be from ten "maps" to a hundred or more. One map is made of 30x30 tiles, where a player takes up two of those (32x64px sprite).
Cities are not going to be little places with a handful of shops; it will be a city. Again, with a map count as example, 40+. In the city will be slums, marketplaces, religious sects, political sects with senates and jails, then of course a castle for the lord of the land to reside in, if it were the capital city.
So, with the entire world able to be explored, I'll be continually adding little places where players can hop in and come out at another place of the world - this works well with deep underground tunnels for crossing under seas - long journey, though! Bring lots of food and water!... Unless of course, they found places to drink water from and hunt bugs and whatnot... Man, that sounds awesome.

Question/Statement- "Skills that make one actually feel like they are in whatever demographic they are in." Duke 2.0

Skills are going to take a long time to earn over time, don't expect to see everybody running around with 100% in Swordsmanship after a week! After working so hard, we want people to feel pride in their skill, as if they actually worked for it, rather than turning around in a "Master Swordsman Only Guild" to find a 7-year-old Newb swinging his Rare-God-Sword, or, something.
That really annoyed me in WoW, when I used to play it.

Question/Statement-Peasant newbies should feel kinda like they are poor underdogs reaching for uncearten greatness." - Duke 2.0

When you start the game, you will go through a historical period, sort of like a flashback. In it, you will choosing what you started as, what you encountered at certain points in your life, and what happened to make you ageless. Then they will awaken in the actual starting point of the actual game. From there, they will have basic equipment and a handful of gold, and perhaps a family heirloom, depending on how you spent your earlier years.
MyWorld has a Time Feature, which makes 4 G days pass in 1 R day, meaning, 4 Game Days in 1 Real-Time Day. We spent a couple of hours yesterday working this out.
Mind, the time system is not fixated, and we may make it 1G=1R.
But, yeah. Peasants you are born as, Peasants you will live as. You will spend your days as a humble farmer, or a carpenter, metalsmith, and so forth - unless you take that step towards adventure and magic.

Question/Statement-"Demigods should scare away most everything but other demigods." - Duke 2.0

I've done some thinking about this, and I've decided to give gods personalities and needs, wants and so forth, making them semi-human. This was inspired by the movie Hancock.

Question/Statement-"An experience curve that always awards a person something regularly. " - Duke 2.0

The reward itself is in the experience. By levelling up a Skill, you will be increasing in skill with whatever that skill is! Take farming, for example. As your skill goes up, your plants will grow to be more healthy and productive. Other than that, we have planned an acheivements system.

Question/Statement-"The idea is that things will be shifting often enough that you won't find things in the same place all the time. Because of how dynamic the system is, nobody can farm a spot that gives .5% extra experience." - Duke 2.0

This I would really like to avoid. Maybe monsters that migrate would be a useful feature, to fix that, and richer soils near lakes and grasslands.

Question/Statement-"Quests feel like quests, because while you may be given information on where things are the information could have changed. You need to search for whatever you are searching for. Naturally such things would have common areas they gravitate to so things are not totally random, but I want people to hunt for information and feel like they are in the roles they are in." - Duke 2.0

Yeah; we definetly need to avoid the "Kill 10 boars!" thing, that was crazy. Maybe have Villager Jim say he needs a love letter sent to his lover in another village, when you go there, she isn't there - or she might be. You ask her parents and friends where she is, and find out that she travels to the Capital City's market every tuesday.
Maybe in a higher-level quest, as an assassin, you need to hunt down a powerful mage. Seeing as once someone is dead, they're dead, this would be a one-shot quest. You need to ask around where his last known location was, find out he is deep under the earth, then you go on an epic quest in very, very dark tunnels.
If you're a human, you'll have a real problem doing this without magical aid - light and noise could attract trouble you don't want! And, as I said in my first response, food and water is required.


Question/Statement-"

    I'm thinking;
    Full Crafting, Mining, Relationships, self-run armies, Village-building...

What you said, plus:
-farming,
-herding, " - Virtz[/size]

Farming will be in; planting crops, watering, fertilizing, deweeding, etc. With the time system, this process could take days to take care of. (Real LIfe days).
Herding is something i'd like to see in, but the team hasn't really talked much on that. Farm animals should be easy enough, having a flock of sheep-like-creatures running away from you into a pen would be harder, though.
Should be fun!

Question/Statement"at least DF-level realistic combat, " - Virtz

Right now, there are 3 battle systems. The first is a classic-rpg turn-based 6-member-party sort of thing, using a menu to select what each character does. This could be between Player VS NPC or Player VS Player.
The second is a duel system, where two players use a rock-paper-scissor system to fight each other, set on a cinematic view. (We should be able to throw some twists and turns into this system).
Finally is the army battles, where you control your character on a battlefield, alongside all of the soldiers in your army, and vice versa with the enemy - this system I look forward to the most.
So, I doubt we will be able to throw in a complex wrestling system, although we may be able to fit in a "poke guy. Send flying" system. That'd be ace - charging at the enemy, to see a soldier go flying backwards past you - or hitting you and knocking you over! Wow... Thanks for this idea!

Question/Statement"variability in crafting (use different materials for different parts of the item)," - Virtz

Of course! It'd be pretty lame otherwise. Cotton or Wool in Pillow stuffing... Oak or Pine for that chair... Steel or Iron for that sword... Or maybe Mithril.

Question/Statement"permadeath (as well as magical methods of avoiding it)" - Virtz

Permadeath is something I beleive should be avoided. It sounds obvious, seeing as we are trying to make this game realistic and all, but, if you spend 3 months working on that rare-magical-skill, get it to 99, and then be stabbed in the back whilst meditating by some newb, you won't be pleased.
But, permadeath is present in NPCs - and trust me, we are aiming to make it so you feel like you really know these guys, rather than having some idiot on the street with one or two lines.
He will have a family, his own skills, his own age. If he isn't killed, he will die of old age and maybe have children in his lifetime.

Question/Statement"possibility of non-lethal combat." - Virtz

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, unless you mean sparring? I think that that should be possible. Maybe in a Training Ground or a Sparring Room.
Maybe an option for Bandits to knock you out, rather than killing you, so that they can tie you up in their hideout and torture you. Or, ransom you off.
If we could reach that level of expansivity in MyWorld, I'd be very happy.

Question/Statement"limited, yet "realistic" magic (if you can throw a fireball at someone, then it should put him on fire, not take away 10 HPs)," - Virtz

I touched upon this above, with Duke 2.0, that Magic is a rare and hard thing to acquire. Your example is gospel. Sending a fireball into the midst of a handful of solders on a battlefield, shouldn't only just set alight to the enemy, but anybody nearby.
This could make an opportunity for a well roleplayed "Forgetful Wizard" character. Those guys are always fun.
"Look out; that snake is about to bite you!"
"FIREBALL!!"
"NO-!!"

Question/Statement"steampunk setting (locomotives, guns and magic)." - Virtz

I'm going to create Inventable technology in-game. Maybe when a player reaches level X in X skill, he can invent a new weapon.
That's actuall a pretty good idea! Thanks Virtz!


Question/Statement"In all these MMOs, eventually everyone is the same thing, they all have the same abilities and skills.
I liked how in Diablo you only had enough skill points to either spread out, or focus in one area.
It makes it so there are multiple ways of killing enemies, not just "Oh, I'm a mage, better buy Fireball Lv.11, it's better than Lightning Bolt Lv.9. Oh lookie, every other mage my level is also buying this same ability, because it's the best one (WoW...)" - Hawkfrost

Agreed, I already Spoke about this above with... Duke 2.0, I think.
But to expand on that, then, MyWorld will have skills that are either difficult to learn, difficult to acheive, or difficult in usage. Maybe one spell costs more components or magic that another - think Oblivion, on how you had that awesome Fireball spell, but it costs too much magic compared to it's lesser fireball. It did less damage, but cost less Magic to cast - giving you time to regenerate.

Question/Statement"I've always liked games with an interesting alchemy system, having to experiment can be a good deal of the fun. The problem with having something like this in an MMO of course is that you'll just get wikis set up with all the recipes and nobody will experiment. One way around this is to tier the ingredients in terms of rarity, each tier would include many equally rare ingredients. Each potion would have its own template, a healing potion needing two tier 1 ingredients and a tier 2 ingredient. Then the actual ingredients required for each potion would be randomly chosen for each new player. If I were implementing something like this I'd also group ingredients by element or something similar so the template for the ignite potion would be 1 tier 1 fire ingredient, 1 tier 2 any ingredient or similar. You could even get really creative in that there are many ways to process a raw ingredient thereby turning each ingredient into many others." - Vattic

Yeah, I love alchemy! It's probably one of the main reasons I played Oblivion for as long as I did.
Now, even if people did say what is needed for what potion, they'd still have the difficult task of finding it.
If the team can impliment a system that makes it so once a plant has been picked, it needs time to regrow (from the left over roots, or nearby spawns just-planted), then I doubt we'd need the tier system. We havn't really gotten around to Alchemy yet, but, you can bet that it'll be just as diverse - if not moreso - than crafting.[/color]

Question/Statement"Either no levels, or no level caps" - Volfram.

Spoken of, once more, with Duke 2.0, No levels. There are skills. But... I was about to say we will need to cap the skills, but, will we really? Maybe the higher your skill, the extra value that goes into your product. Make the skills are extremely difficult and take a while to get, after reaching the previously-top number (100), but every point contributes to the item value.
Yes, I think that will work. Thank you, Volfram!

Question/Statement"Player-designed content(particularly armor and weapons.  A high-grade crafter can craft high-grade armor and weapons, which he designs himself with an integrated toolset) to go along with the lack of levels/caps." - Volfram

Looks like I just explained this in the last Q, huh! Along with what i'v spoken of above, I think that that is this question answered.
As for player-designed content, once something has been created, it can be sold and bought between peoples, meaning the content would be in circulation from the creator for a while, till broken or lost.

Question/Statement"Hack 'n Slash or 3rd-person shooter-style realtime combat system, instead of the boot-kicking style currently used." - Volfram

The game is 2D, so this could be hard to acheive - but maybe a key-pressed combo could be acheived for Army Battles using this - much more preferable to F-key-smashing, right?

Question/Statement"LOTS of GM-run events." - Volfram

I don't think there is much a GM-run event can be used for; most of the game will be controlled by players, aswell as many of that automated (House building, family making, arena battles, etc).
We might be able to get a Mod to become the latest challenger at an arena, or, something, but not much more.


Question/Statement"Personally, I want a series of independent areas that require player effort to maintain and restart. Take SS13. What I would like is a series of stations devoted to different tasks, along with planet side work. You have to set up siphoning stations for air on the planet to ship it up to the stations, where on the mining station they get metal while breathing the air brought up from the planet, then that metal goes to the alien artifact station to repair the damage from the latest problem with the artifact or the most recent attack from said aliens. Each would require a different skill set which would be raised by doing, with the air harvesting being easiest, followed by mining then the alien experimentation. Naturally this is far less complex then what I idealize, but its a start for a basic system.
Basically, a world where advancement requires players to work together in all the stages of the game, where the newbie harvesting air actually has an effect on the extremely experienced scientists working on the artifact. Where the laser turret gunners on defense for the stations and the meat harvesters killing seex snow moooose are both doing critical work that makes a difference. What always pissed me off about WoW was the pointlessness of the quests. Hell one day I saw final stage before being attuned for Onyxia in SW go off 10 times in ONE HOUR. Kinda made it feel pointless to even bother from a story aspect." - Beorn80

Well, yeah. If you and a handful of skilled artisans get together, you could make some decent crafts. For example; you are a skilled Dyer - but terrible at everything else. You have a skilled farmer, weaver, clothier and a shopkeeper. Put all these together, and your craft's value would be up by about 300% (tripled).
Seeing as it takes so long to work on skills, that may be the way the game will run itself.


Question/Statement"Their (Star Wars Galaxies) quest system was also quite underpowered, with players picking up quests to kill a random spawn of X, riding 1-2km out of town to kill it, rinse and repeat.  One of the drawbacks of having a world that is large enough to have wilderness is the lack of content that players have come to expect from an mmo.  SWG had large planets that had endless tracts of random animal spawns.  Lots of room to build player cities, but also quite boring to run across." - Vector

Yeah, I noticed this too. Was a shame to have so much space, wasted. With that, was the Player Housing - what an ugly sight! The guild halls included. It was just a bunch of buildings, throw into an area with equal spaces about; very lifeless. This will be avoided with detail.

Question/Statement"See above, plus more realistic combat. Usually sword combat would be "Press left mouse button to attack." Maybe a mouse based system like "Press left mouse button and move mouse upward or downward for a vertical slash."" - Jack_Bread

Seeing as MyWorld is 2D, I don't think the Mouse would be usable for this sort of action, unless we go all Harry-Potter on it, with tracing sigils and whatnot with the mouse.

Question/Statement"Do any of you guys play EvE Online?  When I discovered DF, I immediately thought how spectacularly rad it would be to have the dwarven economy in EvE.  Mining ore into a would earn dwarfbucks, as would hauling it to station, refining it at your level of ability and processing it into goods.  Everyone could be credited for their individual contributions, and then could use that "credit" to pull finished gear out of the shared inventory.  Nobody could rip your group off, since their withdrawals would never exceed their contributions, and you could weight votes for decisions (war declarations, establishment of facilities, etc.) based on the portion of the overall value for which each member is responsible.  It would be the perfect communist democracy, and would reward both the individual and the group for acting in everyone's best interests." - HatfieldCW

That's pretty complicated, but I think  I catch the gist of it. Crafting system will be pretty deep, teamwork will help you pull of a good sale from multiple users working on it (increasing it's value). As for ripping the group off... well, I guess we will have to do one of those shared-withdrawal things you mentioned. If a farmer has put in a 88 Gold-worth of effort in, then he receives 88 gold - everyone else receives 44.
If the weaver puts in 124 Gold-worth of effort in, he gets 124, and everybody else gets 62. This would make an effective system - good post, HattfieldCW!


Question/Statement"Anyway, a MMO I would like to play would basically be the next generation UO (Houses, skills, economy, other player influenced things other than GRIND HERE, GET LOOT, PWN QUIPS)" ~Thndr

Houses? Yeah, there are houses. Did I mention that the player can build them? You'll need to cut down trees and get a carpenter to turn them into wood - or grab some stones and get a mason to cut them into blocks for you.
You can then go on to upgrade it. Increasing room size, create room, create corridor, new level, new basement, furniture, fireplace, etc.
Also, whilst i'm on this topic, i doubt it'll come up in another question, Magicians will be able to "Meditate" which takes them into a blank white room in their mind. In this place, magicians will be able to create a home - for free! No limits and no costs, the draw back is, it's In his mind, and nobody else can go to it. In this place, he can relax.
Skills have already been explained above.
Economy? I think that's self-explanatory from whats been said before-hand, but the economy will be player-run.
Farmers buy seeds. Plant crops. Sell crops. Users eat crops. Farmers buy more seeds. Seed-seller pays rent. Lord-of-Land receives rent. Lord-of-Land buys furniture / supports cost of building village. Carpenter receives money, hires woodcutter... And so forth. It all goes into circulation.
I can't quite put my finger on what else players will be influencing, but they will be able to build villages, which I think is pretty influential. Players can have children and watch them grow. (Players don't age), then the children will have children, their children will have children... your child will grow old, or die in a tragedy; and all this is planned to be kept in a Family Tree for you - I wonder if the family tree will ever meet another player's family tree? That'd be interesting...


Question/Statement"Star Wars Galaxies, before the GIMP had the best character skill system I have seen yet in any MMO, even with several classes that were broken and useless (droid engineer).
You simply gained skill in something by using it. Tired of firing a rifle and want to do hand-to-hand? Just start doing it, you will gain points to spend on those skill trees. You could actually play all the classes with one character if given enough time." - Ductape

I'v already said above, but, this is possible. Feel free to learn a new skill system at any time.

Question/Statement"Of course, it wasnt perfect, but what is? Also the crafting system was fun. Mining resources and setting up shops was pretty cool." - Ductape

Again, possible. Go to a diggable mountain range, dig out some ores. Build a house, then turn it into a shop - or rent a shop in the city, or take the cheap option of setting up behind a stall in the market.

Question/Statement"Also scripting your bots to run things when you are offline, that is something I would love to see in an MMO again." - Ductape

Not exactly "Scripting your bots", but, if you have a village, you will be able to tell your villagers what to do. You! Gather wood till I say stop! You! Make me some dinner! You! Stop annoying that kid and go trade this wool in the city!
Not only that, but, when you have an army (Which can consist of two bumbling fools with pitchforks, or an immense legion, it's just the label of the system) you can send them to attack somewhere or guard a strategic place. Send them training. I don't see why all of these tasks can't be done without the boss' (you) supervision. Log off for the day, come back and read the report.

Question/Statement"Also, I play Eve and grinding NPCs is not the way most things are built. The folks out in low securtiy space are the only ones with access to the choice minerals required to build the good ships and gear, and low sec space is fraught with war and territory disuptes. All completely player driven." - Ductape

Yup. If there are bandits in a region, I suggest you take some friends. (Bandits = playable). Or, if your province is at war with the one next door, probably best if you don't go there - or make your passage swift.

Question/Statement"Eve, hands down, has the best virtual economy ever to have existed since computers came to be. Still, the game gets boring once you have done it all. Truth is, they all do." - Ductape

We will see...    

Question/Statement"Player given missions? ummm... you mean the contract system? So you are saying that there are scammers, criminals, crooks and cheats....sounds pretty real to me." - Ductape

Alright, here's an example. Some guy has been repeatedly killing your character for kicks. All you want to do is be left alone and cut wood for that chair you want in your home. You'v got two options, and here are the scenarios:

1. Go to a Bounty Board, and set a bounty on that Mudda Tukka's head. Bam, slap. A Bounty Hunter (player) reads it, takes the job, kills the guy, he gets paid, the guy leaves you alone.
OR, my personal favourite;
2. Go woodcutting again. The guy is coming over to you to initiate another standard battle (which is the 6-member-party system). He starts up, and bam, you have five high-level people on your team, he is on his own. Dead, easily.
How did this happen? They were hiding in the foliage, just out of sight, but close enough to be in the battle - this would work out to be an ambush. In every MMO i'v ever played, there's always a handful of sympaphetic players who feel sorry for those being trolled, and they tend to help out. Maybe somebody would set up a guild where they offer this anti-troll service, for a small payment.
Hell, i'm one of those guys, but yeah. That's the scenario.

Question/Statement"Perma-death. Like when servers reset, your skills would be saved.
Realistic damage system. It would basically be like DF's, but tweaked so that new players still have a chance at taking out a veteran with a lucky hit from a gun or blade.
No levels or classes. Everything would be based around skills, instead." - Broose

I'v already mentioned these, but, again, No, No, Yes.


Question/Statement"no NPCs" - Yamo

Well, if you want your village to be inhabitted by just you, miss out on the aging system, the reproductive system, and the army system, then, that'd suck.
But I can see where you are coming from. NPCs are usually just standing around, picking their nose, and shouting a sentence or two at you.
But.
In MyWorld, they will have family, history... Didn't I already mention this above? I'm pretty sure I did. In any case, NPCs are to be more realistic. I and the team want players to feel emotionally bonded with these characters, and to skip a heart beat when you get the pop up "Your friend Adam Weaver has died in a tragedy! He has been murdered by Azkanan (or another player's name)"
If we can get you to feel compelled to hunt down this character, then woot. Job done.
NPCs will have a memory system, somewhat alike to the Sims. You speak to them, a variable is added to their memory. Player's name and the NPC's disposition towards that player. This could lead to a romance? Or an enemy.

Question/Statement"Mass Combat with Something sorta like a fighting system (Weapons involved)" - Neonivek

Yup. Battlefield Battles, right there. Could go into the thousands of participants; hell knows how the RAM would handle that, but it's a target. Maybe handle it with number-capping waves.

Question/Statement"Leveling up gives access to deeper combos, faster movement, and more complex moves." - Neonivik

Not quite sure about this one, I think that Deeper combos, faster movements and more complex moves should come from training, rather than levelling up the skill. Maybe at some point, characters and create their own combos from moves they already know - maybe a fireball followed by an icebolt and throwing axe.

Question/Statement"Character creation system (Honestly)" - Neonivek

Depends how deep you want to go with this. Hair style, color, character sex, character race, skirt, shirt, tunic, cape, bolero hat, western-style hat, farmer's overalls, boots, shoes, heels... You get the idea.
I'm also planning to have a Portrait system. If any of you have ever played a 90s RPG Game, where you open up the character menu and you have little images of their face, that's what I'm aiming for. Able to switch between eyes, hair, eyebrows, mouth, chin, and so on.

Question/Statement"Take the character creation from Age of Conan, " - jnecros

Never played it, so i'm not quite sure what that entails. =/

Question/Statement"the questing system and character build systems from WoW. " - jnecros

WoW Quest/Character~build system wasn't that impressive, if you ask me?

Question/Statement"Add the skill development and mounted combat systems from Ultima Online/Darkfail" - jnecros

Again, i'v never played it, but i'd like to get mounts in-game, so that will probably entail Mounted Combat.

Question/Statement"Many classes and races via Vanguard and Everquest. " - jnecros

There are no classes - classes are self-defined by how players build their skills. We may describe in a "How To" guide as to what skills a Warmage or Paladin might use, but nothing much else.
Races aren't that diverse at the moment. There are, maybe, six or seven... Human, Dwarf, Elder Elf, Dark Elf, Mahgi and Meskret. Yeah. Six.

Question/Statement"Ship building, lair/castle/tower building, as well as player driven conquest of said areas, with ship combat via Pirate of the Burning Sea." - jnecros

Ship building? Possible. Castle building? Also possible. Player-driven conquest of said areas? Very possible. Ship combat with pirates (NPC and Player pirates) also possible. I hope!

Question/Statement"A magic and alchemical experiment element, maybe astronomy as well stargazing ect." - jnecros

Experiment element? If you mean unexpected results from messing with making your own spells/potions, this i'd like to see in-game. Astronomy/stargazing isn't something we'v thought of, but will take into consideration.

Question/Statement"and Npcs hirelings." - jnecros

Yes, this will be possible. If you are a trader, you may need to hire mercenaries to get you through the war zone, or bandit-infested mountains.

Question/Statement"Twitch based combat, with lag countermeasures." - jnecros

Whut? Twitch based combat... Never heard of it.

Question/Statement"Achievement title with bonuses via Lord of the Rings online," - jnecros

Achievements are planned, aswell as titles earned by that.

Question/Statement"WAR battleground pvp," - jnecros

There won't be Battlegrounds, but Battlefields. When two armies clash, there will be blood. Maybe passer-byers can join the fight in midst-battle and choose a side to fight with. That'd be fun.

Question/Statement"with arenas from WoW." - jnecros

Arenas should be in-game, but it hasn't been touched on by the team yet. I Love arena battles, personally. Maybe we can have it like in Oblivion, where players can be grand-champion, and fight each other over the ranks.
Good post, man.

Question/Statement"And 50$ a month." - Psyco Jelly

No, free. Hopefully donations and traffic would pay for the server costs.

Question/Statement"Randomized world! Each month or so there is a "shift" where the town's orientations and layouts change, with wilderness being completely redone. All dungeons are randomly generated."

No, that won't be possible.

Question/Statement"A lot of people were suggesting no levels and no grinding but how about taking that a step further and having no permanent characters? No, not just permadeath you try to avoid but you actually can't even log into the same character for more than a day or so.
It's be a lot like dwarf fortress with how we picked up particular designs that work well for us after awhile- but instead of efficiency and avoiding tantrum spirals it could be more like "I managed to not get eaten for a whole game-week!"
There could still be progression in that you'd get more options for new characters as you went along- maybe starting off with better equipment or being a proficient carpenter instead of a novice one as soon as you gain control.
And from a design perspective now you don't have to worry about battling economy collapse and all those ways people wish they could change a world will fit right in- one person could even make a city all on their own after working towards it through a dozen characters." - Shoku

This wouldn't be usable for MyWorld; we want players to enjoy being their player, bonding with it. Maybe we could make it so you could switch gameplay to one of your off-spring whilst your character goes dorment (The children eventually die) but that's as close as we could get to that.
That's actually not a bad idea.

Question/Statement"A major thing I really want is a roguelike-esque dungeon design. Maybe like ToME, but with random dungeons scattered about the place, and for them to mesh better with each other." - Vahan

Dungeons will be many and varied in size. Random map generation wouldn't be a good idea, due to the tiling system used in mapping.

Question/Statement"100% modifiable world, anything can be built and destroyed, the land can be shaped in any way in the 3 dimensions. Basically, it would be like Wurm and Haven & Hearth and Fairy Tale Online, only with a Z-level." - Poltifar

Close, but not quite. You can build anything. You can destroy anything (Still working on the idea of deforestation). Land can be dug and piled (I hope).

Question/Statement"Aging, hunger, thirst, etc... also similar to Wurm and Haven & Hearth and Fairy Tale Online." - Poltifar

Yes, Yes, Yes. Aging is going to happen with NPCs, Hunger is with everybody, as is thirst - keep those damned villagers watered! I wonder if we should throw in a need for toilets, too. Seriously.

Question/Statement"-No HP health system, no MP mana system. Health is determined for each body part individually, like in DF, and can have many different types of damage like fire, suffocation, poison, brute, etc. like in SS13. As for magic, well, that's more part of the crafting system, see below." - Poltifar

If only! MyWorld is working in 2d and with sprites, during turn-based 6-member-party combats that uses Swordplay and magic. As I said before, we are stuck with the HP and MP system (At least, for now, until we come up with a balance between body parts VS HP/MP).
Other types of damage should be easy enough, though.
Magic has already been touched on, above, but not in detail. I'll explain this in "See Below" as you say.

Question/Statement"-NO pre-made quests, and minimal (preferably none) NPCs and NPC cities. Yes, also like Wurm and Haven & Hearth and Fairy Tale Online. Its the players that define everything, create cultures, laws, quests, and cities, maybe even the occasional dungeons and such by the more evil people." - Poltifar

This is close to what we have. We will have a handful of starting quests that develop on their own, NPCs will migrate to your village (if you have one) so you can fill your armies with trainable characters, NPC Cities will be one per Province, if that. Some provinces may be in ruins and open for taking. NPC Cities, though, are likely to be run by a player (This is known as lordshipery. Kill the king, take the crown, you own the land).
Want to live underground? Grab a pickaxe. Want to make it evil? Get crafting those traps and capturing those creatures.

Question/Statement"-NO levels, only skills and attributes. Also, skills and attributes only go up when you do something related to them. No grinding making wicker baskets to get in enough points to learn metal-forging, no eating bear meat to get points in charisma, etc. Also, to discourage continuous grinding in, for example, cutting trees to increase lumberjacing, put a limit to how much the skill can go up in a given amount of time, like 24 hours." - Poltifar

No levels? Kay. Only skills and attributes. Agreed. Something related to them? Of course. Grinding is stupid. but, no. We won't be capping how often you're allowed to do it, but by how much you can do it. Energy, my dear friend. You can't expect a dude to cut wood like a machine, the guy needs a rest!

[Azkanan]

Extension that couldn't fit in the Original Post;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Question/Statement:"-All items are UNIQUE. What do I mean by that? I dont mean as in every single item has some special power. I mean they all have a quality, a material, an age maybe, etc. Similarly to DF. No more 'all platemails have exactly the same modifiers and defense bonus'. An iron platemail would be better than a copper one made with the exact same design, and if the crafter is more experienced, he can not only make a better quality one but also add extra 'perks' in it. (see crafting below)" - Poltifar

Quality is to be accounted for. Don't expect to find Quality armor in a newbie-crafter's shop, even NPCs. We may be able to add to the AI feature, that when a NPC crafts a new item, it gets added to his shop. This would help with that problem you touched on up there.

Question/Statement:"Crafting system as proposed by Vattic. Not just the alchemy, but other things too. Making armor wouldnt just be 'open crafting screen, scroll through plans that have been learned, click on the plan you want and have materials for'. No, it will be 'hmm, I've got these two pieces of iron ore. I put them in the smelter, put in fuel, lets see... maybe wait 3 ingame hours? Then I pull out the metal... seems good quality enough. I use my smith hammer on it. One hit? Two hits? Then, temper in water. Pull it out again. Woops, the metal piece broke... must have done something wrong somewhere in the process, its too brittle. Oh well, lets try again, changing the procedure a bit.' This is the ultimate form any crafting system can take. Experimentation would be the key, and any difference in any step of the process would affect the end product. The quality of the ore, the heat of the forge, the time of the smelting, the tempering, the hammer hits, the skill and strength of the person... etc. And once a smith discovers a great recipe, he become rich and famous, making the best swords in the land, unrivaled by any other. People would flock to him for his wares. Once he is old, he might give the secret procedure to his sons or apprentices, or take it to his grave." - Poltifar

This is an excellent idea. I'll be bringing this up at the next meeting, but, then again, there is the problem of somebody posting it in a Wiki, as somebody said above, and ruining the game. I guess that's where the player's skillpoints come into play, a variable on how well the player has handled the process.
NPCs do die from old age, so if a player switches to one of his sons and makes him an excellent crafter, he may then tell another player's son (who is also under control) how to do it, as an aprentice, before he dies.
Just an idea.

Question/Statement:"-Magic would follow the similar theme, with experimentation being the key. There would also be many ways to exercise magic. Tribal witchdoctors might have to try to call on the ghosts of their ancestors (ghosts of dead players), and give them offerings to please them. Alchemists would need to try different regents from exotic plants, animals, and metals, and might even specialize in one type of them. 'Traditional' fantasy mages and wizards would have to develop arcane languages and symbols that allow them to control the flow of magic (or they would learn it from their teachers/masters or from ancient arcane tomes other players would have written long ago)." - Poltifar

Again, excellent idea. Witchdoctor's turn to archaeic prayers, alchemists travelling to the desert to find the Desert Rose (or something), Players needing to learn arcane languages and symbols before learning the spell (Such as, like taking a test before he learns it. "What does # symbol mean? Player has a list of options, etc, but on his own in a study, or, something).

Question/Statement:"-Randomly generated HUGE world. Some people might dislike walking around, but hey, we need a HUGE world if we want it to be truly realistic. If its too small, there is no place for cities, farmlands, mines, hidden outposts, etc... How can you build a hidden base if any n00b can just walk around the whole world in under 1 hour and discover it??" - Poltifar

not going to happen. Well, the randomly generated part.
I explained this above, but basically, the world is going to be huge. As in, really, really big. Oblivion x5. So, generating it wouldn't work. But yeah, the Huge World thing will definetly be there. It'll take you at least a few months, maybe a year or more, to see every inch of it.

Question/Statement:"Of course, with the huge random world comes random resource and creature generation. No more 'you can mine anywhere to find the iron'. Maybe the far-flung town in the south is the only source of iron for your whole kingdom, and thus is a very important location. Maybe a vein of some strange unknown substance, or a rare kind of lichen ideal for alchemy, was found in the treacherous northern mountains. Maybe the last few black dragons are rumored to live in the swamps nearby, and a weird burrowing creature has been attacking caravans near the desert. Etc.." - Poltifar

Agreed (Minus the random part!) Don't expect to dig into sandstone and find gold - you may even hit a Larva tube, and cause an explosion. You'd burn, and it would spill onto anything nearby. Woe to any nearby villages.
Same for alchemic reagants,  you'll have a tough job trying to find many of them, seeing as the world is so huge.
Fauna and Flora are going to be in the thousands of diversity.

Question/Statement:"-Herding, hunting, farming, fishing, etc... all these also relate to the random generation system and the advanced crafting system. How many seeds of this plant do I plant? How much water do I use? What is the best fertilizer for it? Wow, if I add a smudge of pheonix excrement with the soil for this plant, it grows bright red flowers that glow in the dark! Maybe I should take these to the local alchemist to investigate?" - Poltifar

Herding? I hope so. Hunting? Yes Farming? Yes Fishing? Yes. Good example, I think you may have just expanded how we will be handling farming. Thank you!

Question/Statement:"-No ultimate item/material/whatever. ALL MMOs up to date have an 'ultimate' of everything, one 'must have' for you to be anything other than a n00b. Just look at WoW. If you dont have THAT spell, THAT weapon, and THAT armor, you're less than dirt. There must always be something to get more than what you have, else the game has little meaing. Same goes for the skills, there must be no caps (although once you reach a certain amount, it becomes incredibly slow to learn more). Also, have different items and materials on the same power-level and have a reason to choose any of them, not just a specific one. Maybe maces are better than swords against the rock golems you are going to face? Maybe the fireball spell is more economic in your town than the iceball spell because the reagents are more readily available here? Iron is normally better than silver to make weapons of because of greater hardness, but silver is easier to enchant and is more effective against supernatural opponents, so, hmm, which to chose? Heck, even RP reasons: maybe its a tradition for all royal guards to wear black iron helmets encrusted with a single ruby on the front? Maybe you are a famous sword-master that has been using your old rusted iron sword that you inherited from your father for sentimental reasons?" - Politfar

As I said up at the start of all this, somewhere, I may remove the idea of skill-capping. With that, every increment in the skill increase the value and quality of that peice of armor, that weapon, etc. Therefore, there would never be the ultimate peice - there will always be room for improvement... This opens up a whole can of worms with uneven gameplay, but hey, i'll have to make it so it takes a month or two to increase the skill, past 100, by 1.
In Lineage 2, in certain grades, there's always the best Heavy Armor, best Light Armor, Best Sword, etc. This was a load of nullcrap to me, so, in MyWorld, players will be crafting their own wares and sending them out into the world. Maybe somebody buys it, gets a new one, and sells it. That is then set for sale (Maybe even in an NPC shop), which then gets bought, and so on.

Question/Statement:"Now for the disclaimer: I do not believe such a game would ever be made, atleast not before we have quantum computers to run it and positronic brain AIs to help us make and manage it. And even if it WAS possible to make it, it would NEVER work as an MMO like WoW or others, because of the incredible emphasis on metagamming in these communities. Wikis would pop with theories on combat, item crafting, maps of the world, etc... within days of its opening. The only way it would work was with strictly enforced RP and with a small community (relative to other MMOs), like Fairy Tale Online is doing." - Poltifar

Well, yeah. If we do make this, it'll be awesome (MyWorld). But, because it's 2D, it may scare off a large portion of the audience (Impressionable 12 year olds and incomprehensive fools).
So, a Wiki-game-destroyer-pedia may not become too much of a problem. Mind you,  you say a small community, yet DF is small (compared to many) and it has a Wiki filled with hacks and tips. Oh well.
Good post, man.

[Normandy]

IMO a bunch of people here have never played late-game WoW, or even bothered to look at the wiki before accusing it of such things. There is no 'ultimate build', 'ultimate weapon', 'one place to rule them all', 'grindish quests', etc... I'm not sure why everyone is convinced that the quests one partakes in for the first 10 levels are the quests that exist throughout the entire game.

High-tier WoW has a huge amount of variety. There's multiple builds and multiple competing theories of combat, each with different equip sets, enchant sets, etc... On top of that, each player can bring their own unique builds to the items, say swapping out one enchant for the other, etc...

There is no ultimate anything in WoW. Although yes, mid-levels do tend to get grindy, late-game content more than makes up for it IMO.


Also, I'd say stop worrying about the proliferation of recipes and junk on wikis. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? I can go to my public library fairly easily and pick out a cookbook teaching me advanced recipes. However, it is up to the discretion of the discoverer whether or not to post such a recipe on the wiki. I know of many games with tech trees which clans discover and refuse to release publicly for their own advantage. Worrying about recipes being posted is a moot point.

[Jay]

Holy crap.
...
That is a mighty wall of text there.
If I understood it correctly, you and a team are going to try to make it...?
I wish you luck in your endeavors and can't wait to see the result.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

There are games out there where the player community is just very good at keeping secrets. It's a holdover from text adventure games and MUDs I think, where part of the fun was discovering it yourself. If you have the walkthrough you can stomp through the game and all its puzzles in a few minutes. Not fun at all really.

I think when we look at the third-party game websites where you can buy virtual goods or find walkthroughs and builds and hints and such, maybe the game manufacturer wants those to exist. Because players want them, and what really matters is that people are playing your game.

Now if a game company sold virtual goods for real money, including a scheme where if you have a premium account your character gains a daily income or EXP gain boost, then the third-party website would be competition rather than a complementary thing.

And of course, this.

(TL;DR: Everquest's currency (Platinum Pieces) is worth 0.01 USD each and it functions exactly like in a real currency market. My thoughts: paper money, credit, and bank accounts are virtual wealth anyway)

[deadlycairn]

Just make sure that the huge world isn't too empty, as afflicted Oblivion. You'll be starting off with a small playerbase, you don't want them to get lost.

[Tilla]

There are games out there where the player community is just very good at keeping secrets. It's a holdover from text adventure games and MUDs I think, where part of the fun was discovering it yourself. If you have the walkthrough you can stomp through the game and all its puzzles in a few minutes. Not fun at all really.

I think when we look at the third-party game websites where you can buy virtual goods or find walkthroughs and builds and hints and such, maybe the game manufacturer wants those to exist. Because players want them, and what really matters is that people are playing your game.

Now if a game company sold virtual goods for real money, including a scheme where if you have a premium account your character gains a daily income or EXP gain boost, then the third-party website would be competition rather than a complementary thing.

And of course, this.

(TL;DR: Everquest's currency (Platinum Pieces) is worth 0.01 USD each and it functions exactly like in a real currency market. My thoughts: paper money, credit, and bank accounts are virtual wealth anyway)

I think it's been proven a trillion times over that in game transactions for real world money make any game less fun.

[Pillow_Killer]

Uh, everything here kinda fits for Ultima Online... Really.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

There are games out there where the player community is just very good at keeping secrets. It's a holdover from text adventure games and MUDs I think, where part of the fun was discovering it yourself. If you have the walkthrough you can stomp through the game and all its puzzles in a few minutes. Not fun at all really.

I think when we look at the third-party game websites where you can buy virtual goods or find walkthroughs and builds and hints and such, maybe the game manufacturer wants those to exist. Because players want them, and what really matters is that people are playing your game.

Now if a game company sold virtual goods for real money, including a scheme where if you have a premium account your character gains a daily income or EXP gain boost, then the third-party website would be competition rather than a complementary thing.

And of course, this.

(TL;DR: Everquest's currency (Platinum Pieces) is worth 0.01 USD each and it functions exactly like in a real currency market. My thoughts: paper money, credit, and bank accounts are virtual wealth anyway)

I think it's been proven a trillion times over that in game transactions for real world money make any game less fun.

His argument was that games without a virtual currency market are a meritocracy, and the idea of that is very attractive to players. But players don't actually seem to want to work from the ground up in that environment when everyone else is super powerful - you want to escape real life, not play yourself in a game, after all. And everyone seems to like being able to cheat their way up. So virtual currency markets are popular with players for those reasons.

More specifically, virtual currency exchange is viewed by new players are a lovely thing, but by established players as horrible (until the established player decides to sell his account for $2000 that is).

Generalities. I'm sure everyone has a different opinion to some degree.

[Labs]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Have a link to a dev page of some sort?

[Azkanan]

Uh, everything here kinda fits for Ultima Online... Really.

You can create villages, hire villagers into your personal army, then train them up into heroes? There are turn-based 6-party-member battles? Battlefield battles? Duels?

Sounds like a lot of fun. Have a link to a dev page of some sort?

I'm not sure if i'm allowed to post that? If not, my apologies and delete the Links. Otherwise;

Website;
www.myworld.hostzi.com

World Map Image + Updated progress;
http://www.myworld.hostzi.com/images/worldmap.jpg

Mod|DB Webpage;
http://www.moddb.com/games/myworld

[Pillow_Killer]

You can create villages, hire villagers into your personal army, then train them up into heroes? There are turn-based 6-party-member battles? Battlefield battles? Duels?

Yes, Yes, Yes, Tick-Based, Yes, Yes.

[Labs]

This world seems a bit more malleable than Ultima. The fact that there was a lot of permant stuff in Ultima was kind of a low blow IMO.

[Virtz]

You can create villages, hire villagers into your personal army, then train them up into heroes? There are turn-based 6-party-member battles? Battlefield battles? Duels?

Yes, Yes, Yes, Tick-Based, Yes, Yes.

I do not think you follow on the difference between what you can do with other players and what you can do with NPCs. Because, to my memory, NPC interaction in UO was much more limited than what's described.

[penguinofhonor]

This sounds really difficult but promising.