I know for many the very word ‘faction’ makes one cringe, because it is typically associated with endless grinding for paltry favors. But hear me out. Prepare yourself, this is a long post—more of an essay really. Up to this point in time, there have largely been three ways to advance in MMOs: 1. level progression, 2. gear progression, 3. skill progression. Factions are typically thrown in as side features in an attempt to make the game more complex, perhaps more realistic, or to provide time-sinks. But what if all your advancement was tied to faction progression? Imagine the possibilities. Let me paint a picture. Consider a mature rated ptp (player to player) sandbox game with no levels, no starting faction, and no starting skills. Let the world be polarized by various NPC factions. Some of these could be priestly cults, devoted to various gods, others could be thief/assassin organizations, mage/sorcery organizations, warrior organizations, holy warrior (paladin) organizations, druid organizations, merchant organizations, trade-skill organizations, etc. Perhaps the closest model might be provided by Morrowind with its faction rich world. But it did not go far enough. Let some of these factions be strongly aligned, some be strongly opposed, and let others be largely neutral to one another. Let each faction have its own highly protected NPC stronghold, with various instructors, lore-keepers, and a supreme NPC leader. But outside the strongholds, let the factions be largely scattered throughout the land, with representatives in every major city and village, and where appropriate, outposts in the wilds. Let there also be an overriding threat to the world as a whole, such as a demonic horde from Hell, which seeks to destroy the world and everything in it. Now let everything you say or do in the game have an effect on your faction. I mean everything. For each action, let there be a corresponding faction gain and faction loss, depending upon the nature of the action. By acting, the player would then define his/her role, and would eventually become aligned with a certain faction and its allies. Let this have both benefits and costs. For example, it could affect the players stats—increasing faction in a given direction could increase certain stats, while simultaneously decreasing others. It could also open up certain skills and abilities, which are taught by members of the aligned faction and their allies, while blocking other skills and abilities, which are taught by members of the opposing faction and their allies. Quests could then be designed such that the player has a variety of meaningful choices regarding how to respond to the quest giver or how to complete the quest. I’m not talking about trivial fetch x, collect y quests, which have no connection to the story or lore. I’m talking about a mutli-branched, epic quest-line, where every quest is somehow tied into the overriding threat to the entire world. To meet this threat the most illustrious and elite members from all the factions are required. The goal is to become one of those elite members, so that one can participate in the ‘end-game’—which will involve attempting to overcome the demonic threat. This means one has to choose a particular faction or set of factions, and rise through the ranks to become an elite member of that faction. Whether or not one succeeds in accomplishing this goal, depends upon every action that one makes throughout the entire game. By virtue of some actions, one might rise in rank, and by virtue of other actions, one might fall in rank. Once you have achieved a certain rank, it is not locked in stone. If you perform actions that are opposed to your favored faction, you can fall in rank, with a corresponding reduction in your favored stats, skills, abilities, etc. One thus has to be careful as to what one does, if one wants to rise in the ranks and become a mighty hero, or elite member of the chosen faction. Those who succeed in achieving the highest rank in a given faction are granted extraordinary stats, along with extraordinary skills and abilities, which can then be employed in an attempt to overcome the world-wide threat. This would be a player organized effort, where the elite members of all the factions throughout the world elect a King or Queen, and a supreme council, whose purpose is to marshal all the factions toward a common goal—eradicating the world-wide threat. Ideally, this threat would be dynamic. It would involve world-events, periodically predicted by NPC sooth-sayers around the world, where a super powerful Demon and his minions incarnate to destroy organized society. This is where it really gets interesting. The idea is to have the Incarnated Demon and his minions be other players. The ordinary factions represent organized society, which has its own rules, designed to preserve some semblance of order. Over and above these ordinary factions, let there be a demonic faction—which is increased by performing mindless, evil, and despicable acts, designed to disrupt the activities of organized society. This would include ganking of low level players, spawn camping, general griefing, killing innocent NPCs, including quest-givers, burning down or destroying villages, etc. By doing these things, the player falls outside of organized society and will eventually come under the sway and tutelage of the rising demonic force. As a result, the physical form of the player gradually changes into that of a demon, who is kos by all members of organized society. Let this demonic faction have its own hidden stronghold, in the depths of Hell, which provides these players with a safe haven, from which they can wreak havok on the world. The highest ranking, elite members of this demonic faction can then periodically elect a player, who at pre-ordained and specified times can incarnate as a Great Demon from Hell, with vast raid-worthy powers. A world-event would then consist of the elite members of organized society, with their elected King or Queen, facing the elite members of the demonic faction, with their incarnated Demon. In this fight, there can be no resurrections that allow fallen warriors to fight again. Once you die, you are out of the battle for a specified period of time, and can merely witness the unfolding events as a ghost. In the event that the demonic hordes win, by killing the King or Queen, and defeating the champions of the world, then they can go on a rampage for a limited period of time, destroying villages, cities, guild houses, etc. at their whim—and killing all the lower ranked players that they can find. In the event that organized society wins, by killing the Demon, and his demonic horde, then they can enter the gates of Hell, destroy the demonic stronghold, and kill all the lower ranked demons that they can find. In both cases, the ‘banks’ of the losing side can be robbed—and their treasures stolen. Once the world-event is over, both sides will need time to recover, replenish their treasures and supplies, and prepare for the next world event. This, in my mind, would constitute a worthy end-game for an MMO, while allowing a rich sandbox environment for those who didn’t care to participate in the end-game. Of course, this is largely wishful thinking. Such a game would require highly talented writers, designers, and developers, and a boat-load of cash to develop. For technical reasons, the actual world-event fights would likely have to be instanced and limited to certain numbers of players—perhaps the highest ranking members of the represented factions. This would give the player base something to strive for, and would induce fierce competition within the factions. I put this out there, because it is my idea of a game I would like to see. I will probably never get to see such a game in reality. But you never know who is reading these forums. If the ideas presented here serve to spark an idea for a future game in the mind of an up and coming developer, then it will have served its purpose. Feel free to use these ideas, for whatever they are worth.

For me, I welcome any kind of dynamic content in an MMO (especially if it is influenced by players).

We're all used to the standardized factions. They don't provide very meaningful choices. WoW's choice between the Scryer and Aldor factions have virtually no effect on you as a player.

I like it, and I would definitely shell out a monthly fee for it.

The only concern I have is, how do you plan on maintaining balance between the factions and the demonic forces? If everyone decides to support the demonic cause, will the other factions be overrun/hopelessly outnumbered?

I suppose I would also be careful with the permadeath concept. Very dangerous (especially with this generation of MMO players, who are used to minimal consequences).

In any case it is nice to see people exploring alternatives for an endgame that don't involve strictly Battlegrounds and Raiding.

Some of your ideas are interesting, but I feel a need to point out some reasons that most MMO's do not do what you're suggesting.

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Original post by bhuma Up to this point in time, there have largely been three ways to advance in MMOs: 1. level progression, 2. gear progression, 3. skill progression.

I think by "MMOs" you mean "World of Warcraft". There are other MMO's out there; you should play a few more so you have a broader view. I think the appropriately named "Guild Wars: Factions" might give you some ideas, as well as EVE Online. You can get free trials for both.

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Let this have both benefits and costs. For example, it could affect the players stats—increasing faction in a given direction could increase certain stats, while simultaneously decreasing others. It could also open up certain skills and abilities, which are taught by members of the aligned faction and their allies, while blocking other skills and abilities, which are taught by members of the opposing faction and their allies.

This is pure benefit, and no cost. The way you're describing it, the only way to advance in the game is to pick one faction (or possibly a group of friendly factions) and grind it. There is no reason to play both sides. "Not getting access" to other factions isn't really a choice; it's like saying "Gaining Aldor has the benefit of getting you cool stuff, but the cost is that you don't get the Scryer stuff." That's not a cost, because you can't get the Scryer stuff at the beginning. Picking one of Aldor or Scryer is necessary to advance, and once you do it, it's pure benefit over not picking a side. This isn't necessarily bad, but I think you're glossing over the fact that anyone interested in advancing must pick one faction and grind it; there's no real choice to do otherwise.

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Whether or not one succeeds in accomplishing this goal, depends upon every action that one makes throughout the entire game. By virtue of some actions, one might rise in rank, and by virtue of other actions, one might fall in rank. Once you have achieved a certain rank, it is not locked in stone. If you perform actions that are opposed to your favored faction, you can fall in rank, with a corresponding reduction in your favored stats, skills, abilities, etc. One thus has to be careful as to what one does, if one wants to rise in the ranks and become a mighty hero, or elite member of the chosen faction.

The realistic outcome of this, if it were to be a real commercial MMORPG, would be that two weeks after launch, there would be an automated thottbot system and fifty wikis and strategy guides telling you exactly which choices you should pick to grind up your faction the fastest. "Keeping secrets" from players doesn't work well in an MMO. All of your players are internet-savvy.

If you did manage to keep the secrets, I think many players would intensely dislike the idea of questing for an hour and then at the end getting a message that says "No, option C was the wrong choice. Please do the quest again and guess either A, B, or D."

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Those who succeed in achieving the highest rank in a given faction are granted extraordinary stats, along with extraordinary skills and abilities, which can then be employed in an attempt to overcome the world-wide threat.

This sounds like a level cap; if it is, then you should realize that in a successful MMO, there will be a ton of players that hit it. The vast majority of them in fact. A mistake a lot of MMO dreamers seem to make is that they envision their world as having a small handful of powerful players, without really coming up with a system of how that would work, other than, "Well, my MMO will be really hard." It doesn't matter how hard you make it: if players can respawn and try again, then everyone will eventually hit the level cap. Does your vision work if "those who succeed in achieving the highest rank" are 90% of the people online at any time? Or does it fall apart?

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The ordinary factions represent organized society, which has its own rules, designed to preserve some semblance of order. Over and above these ordinary factions, let there be a demonic faction—which is increased by performing mindless, evil, and despicable acts, designed to disrupt the activities of organized society. This would include ganking of low level players, spawn camping, general griefing, killing innocent NPCs, including quest-givers, burning down or destroying villages, etc. By doing these things, the player falls outside of organized society and will eventually come under the sway and tutelage of the rising demonic force. As a result, the physical form of the player gradually changes into that of a demon, who is kos by all members of organized society.

I think this is a terrible idea. Griefing is a bad thing. Griefing is different from PvP, and it's different from roleplaying the evil team. Despite what a few masochistic teenage boys might say, most people do not enjoy being ganked and corpse camped by someone 30 levels higher than them. Especially new players who are just learning the ropes: the low levels you're talking about. Most people do not enjoy being harassed or insulted. You should never reward this sort of behavior. I can't say how much of a bad idea I think it is to make a game where the key to advancement is killing someone fifty levels lower than you over and over again or camping the spawns of quests you don't need just to annoy people. Almost all MMO's that allow this sort of behavior do everything they can to make it useless for advancement, so that the only people who do it are those who enjoy annoying people for its own sake. A better idea would be to have the Evil Team go on Evil Quests where they need to kill good guys of their own level to advance.

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In the event that the demonic hordes win, by killing the King or Queen, and defeating the champions of the world, then they can go on a rampage for a limited period of time, destroying villages, cities, guild houses, etc. at their whim—and killing all the lower ranked players that they can find. In the event that organized society wins, by killing the Demon, and his demonic horde, then they can enter the gates of Hell, destroy the demonic stronghold, and kill all the lower ranked demons that they can find. In both cases, the ‘banks’ of the losing side can be robbed—and their treasures stolen. Once the world-event is over, both sides will need time to recover, replenish their treasures and supplies, and prepare for the next world event.

This sort of thing tends to lead to a "cycle of power". The side that wins gets all the gold while the losing side loses all their gold. Now the winning side is stronger and the losing side is weaker. So in the next battle, the stronger side wins again. Now they're even stronger and the other side's even weaker. This continues for a while. Players on the losing side start to re-roll alts on the winning side; new players tend to migrate to servers where their preferred side is winning. Eventually, one side just automatically dominates every time, especially if there are one or two uber players who keep getting nominated over and over again to ensure the win. If you want it to balance out, you need to either reset everything a while after one side wins, or you need to ensure that the losing side gets some advantage that is actually better in the long-term than the short-term advantage that the winning side gets. One good example is in the MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea. When one faction wins the world event, it gains rewards, but the losing sides gain bonuses to their economy that will help them more over the long run so they have a better chance at winning the next world event.

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This, in my mind, would constitute a worthy end-game for an MMO, while allowing a rich sandbox environment for those who didn’t care to participate in the end-game.

The way you've described it with the demons, it's not a rich sandbox for those who don't care to participate. It's a vicious gankfest against invincible assholes in every zone, with every questgiver dead and every spawnpoint camped. I would highly recommend you rethink this. There are plenty of ways to roleplay a bad guy without actually needing to ruin people's fun in real life.

I'd like to see something like this created with single-player in mind.

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Original post by Humble Hobo The only concern I have is, how do you plan on maintaining balance between the factions and the demonic forces? If everyone decides to support the demonic cause, will the other factions be overrun/hopelessly outnumbered?

Not sure how one would maintain balance between the numbers if the player is left free to choose. Each server would have to determine its own fate.

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I suppose I would also be careful with the permadeath concept. Very dangerous (especially with this generation of MMO players, who are used to minimal consequences).

There is no permadeath. Its just that in the instanced fight between organied society and the demonic forces there would be a single elimination, so that the winner will not be the one who can rez their members the fastest. After the fight, the dead will rise to play and live again.

[Edited by - bhuma on May 30, 2008 5:41:41 AM]

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Original post by makeshiftwings I think by "MMOs" you mean "World of Warcraft". There are other MMO's out there; you should play a few more so you have a broader view. I think the appropriately named "Guild Wars: Factions" might give you some ideas, as well as EVE Online. You can get free trials for both.

I admit the opening statement was somewhat of a generalization, and that a few games have introduced other ways to advance. Thats why I used the modifier 'largely'.

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This is pure benefit, and no cost. The way you're describing it, the only way to advance in the game is to pick one faction (or possibly a group of friendly factions) and grind it. There is no reason to play both sides.

Lost opportunity cost is a real cost taken into consideration in many economic models, and could be viewed as a real cost in gaming models. Moreover, 'grinding it' is a subjective term, which pertains to repetitive, usually boring, behavior. The way I envision it, advancing or declining in faction would be an outcome of every action the player makes, and also the choices made in the epic quest-line. This should be a dynamic process, which can change from moment to moment, and which can be reverted. For example, when the player wanders into certain regions of the game, he/she might gain temporary faction in one direction, and lose faction in another by virtue of location alone. Each faction may also have its own faction sub-quests, which might involve stealing from other factions, sanctioned assassinations of members of other factions, etc. It would take some development work to eliminate the perception of 'grinding'. But ideally it would not be as simplistic and boring as kill x to get y pts of faction, or collect x to get y pts.

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The realistic outcome of this, if it were to be a real commercial MMORPG, would be that two weeks after launch, there would be an automated thottbot system and fifty wikis and strategy guides telling you exactly which choices you should pick to grind up your faction the fastest. "Keeping secrets" from players doesn't work well in an MMO. All of your players are internet-savvy.

No doubt you are right. In a finite game world, generated by finite algorithms, those who choose to do so could reduce the gameplay to a recipe or formula. Not much one can do about it. But not everyone likes to play like that.

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This sounds like a level cap; if it is, then you should realize that in a successful MMO, there will be a ton of players that hit it. The vast majority of them in fact.

The highest (elite) rank in a given faction would be limited to a certain number of players for each faction, for each server...those with the highest faction number. There would be a soft cap on the amount of faction one could obtain, such that after a certain point there are diminishing returns. The dynamic nature of the faction process should be such that maintaining the highest rank is extremely difficult, such that those who are classified as 'elite' one week, might not be the next week, due to their own and others actions during the course of normal gameplay.

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I think this is a terrible idea. Griefing is a bad thing. Griefing is different from PvP, and it's different from roleplaying the evil team. Despite what a few masochistic teenage boys might say, most people do not enjoy being ganked and corpse camped by someone 30 levels higher than them... You should never reward this sort of behavior.

Agreed, griefing is a bad thing. Its mindless, despicable, and evil. But it will inevitably be present in any free for all pvp game to some degree or other. However, the life of a griefer will not be easy. Those who choose to play this way will have no access to the towns and villages. They will assume the form of demons, which will be kos by members of organized society, both players and NPCs alike. They will be hunted like dogs, and will have to scavage for food, suplies, and treasures under the cover of night in the most remote regions of the world, and their only safehaven will be Hell. Like vampires, they may have penalties to stats, skills, and abilities if they venture in the world during the day, which are removed at night. Its a punishment really. But even with such a severe punishment, there will be those who choose to play this way...and for that they will be rewarded with vast demonic powers in the end game fights. The few who choose this life-style will be outnumbered in the end game fights, by design. The numbers will not be equal on the two sides. The elite members of organized society will be weaker individually than the demons in a 1 to 1 fight. Their strength will come from numbers and cooperative strategy. The demons will revel in unsurpassed powers individually, consistent with their individualistic and selfish pursuit of power.

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The side that wins gets all the gold while the losing side loses all their gold. Now the winning side is stronger and the losing side is weaker. So in the next battle, the stronger side wins again. Now they're even stronger and the other side's even weaker. This continues for a while. Eventually, one side just automatically dominates every time, especially if there are one or two uber players who keep getting nominated over and over again to ensure the win. If you want it to balance out, you need to either reset everything a while after one side wins, or you need to ensure that the losing side gets some advantage that is actually better in the long-term than the short-term advantage that the winning side gets.

This is a good point. The general idea is that winning or loosing the world-event should have consequences for all members of the two sides, not just those participating in the event. Perhaps there could be a temporary stat, skill, ability boost for the loosing side, so that they could recover their gold/treasures, etc. faster. Whatever the mechanism might be, it should result in a more or less level playing field for the next event. To accomplish this the events will have to be somewhat infrequent, perhaps 1 a month, or 1 every three months. Certainly not a daily or even a weekly thing.

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The way you've described it with the demons, it's not a rich sandbox for those who don't care to participate. It's a vicious gankfest against invincible assholes in every zone, with every questgiver dead and every spawnpoint camped. I would highly recommend you rethink this. There are plenty of ways to roleplay a bad guy without actually needing to ruin people's fun in real life.

Actually such gankfests are historical in real life. In ancient times the victors would rape, kill, enslave, and plunder the ordinary citizens who otherwise could care less about the large-scale struggle for power. There were periods of utter devastation and social instability, followed by periods of relative calm and social stability.

In the game, the winning side would not have free reign for an indefinite period. They would be unleashed on the other side for a relatively short period of time, during which the elite members of the losing side are helpless to protect the citizens. The ordinary citizens themselves can attempt to protect themselves and their possessions against the marauders, and may succeed if their numbers and organization are sufficient. Otherwise, it will be a time to hide and run for the hills. The end result should be that everyone 'cares' about whether their side wins or loses--because it will directly affect everyonme in game, at least for a short period, with potential long term repercussions.

The ordinary citizens should 'fear' the loss of such an event by their champions. A 'loss' should matter, such that there will be wailing in the streets and much gnashing of teeth. Otherwise, its trivial. Those who choose to play the game, must live with the consequences of a dangerous world.

[Edited by - bhuma on May 30, 2008 6:43:22 AM]

Sounds an interesting idea - learning spells via factions. As was mentioned they'd each need to interact in complex ways to ensure that people didn't all choose the most powerful faction and losing favour with one faction didn't mean any huge handicap.

One idea I've had with MMOs is the idea of removing classes, and every talen being based on a big tree, a bit like Might + Magic. This would of course mean that swapping "classes" would be a lot easier, however it would also make the game a lot more fun and less time intensive in my view.

I like the idea of faction based abilities.

I think your mega game needs work, although I don't really have any great solutions.

It is hard to meld faction based ideas and guild based ideas together. It is also hard to find a way to deal with people doing what they want to do and trying to police it with code while still offering freedom. It is also hard to have a winner without reseting the game.

I think DAOC did a really good job of making PVP something that is not considered griefing by many. It was simply part of the game. I think this should be the general philosophy as opposed to making griefers into demons.

Anyway, I can keep writing but it is such a complicated issue I think I would just end up rambling. A tweaked guild system or Realm system may be the best bet. If you want players to choose factions you can make a realm system where there are also neutral players who have simply not chosen a side yet.

If you want to build off a guild system you can have it so guilds can choose factions to align themselves with and build off of that.

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Original post by bhuma Quote: Original post by makeshiftwings This sounds like a level cap; if it is, then you should realize that in a successful MMO, there will be a ton of players that hit it. The vast majority of them in fact. The highest (elite) rank in a given faction would be limited to a certain number of players for each faction, for each server...those with the highest faction number. There would be a soft cap on the amount of faction one could obtain, such that after a certain point there are diminishing returns. The dynamic nature of the faction process should be such that maintaining the highest rank is extremely difficult, such that those who are classified as 'elite' one week, might not be the next week, due to their own and others actions during the course of normal gameplay.

Sounds like how wow (Edit: Pre-BC back when you had the ranks that were evaluated by honor on a weekly basis) implemented PvP... It sucked imo because only those who had no lives and played 24/7 could ever reach teh top. I would recommend ditching this somehow, someway. Otherwise only those who have no life will ever be at the top and I'm pretty sure thats not what people will enjoy having happen to them.

warhammer online is doing it a little bit better than wow
with their keeps guilds can claim and everything building up
to sacking the enemys capital.