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A MMO development system

Started by Nichollan Dec 13, 2008 at 4:59 PM 5 replies 1k views

Original Post

Dec 13, 2008 at 4:59 PM

Ok, here's a hypothetical idea for how the development of a MMO, or at least its content, could work - which might actually go independent of the original, or any paid, developers. I might have a hard time articulating this idea, so you might not understand what I'm saying. The idea is that - those who display interest in improving the game's quality(ies) should emerge higher in an hierarchy and get more privilege to change things within the game, aswell as point out others who display interest in the game's quality. The game becomes kind of like a wiki, but with a special voting system. The changes to this "wiki" could be implemented in the game by spaced updates of the game. The system would probably have to have many additional details in its design. Possibilities given:

Privilege is something you spend by placing. You could also retrieve privilege and spend it on something else. If the privilege you retrieved was used to give privilege to another editor this editor might lose that privilege, and all the editors this editor gave privilege to, or just some of it depending on how long this editor had that privilege.
It should be difficult to get properties, or change of properties, of an item accepted. An editor might want to have a certain advantage during an upcoming battle which gives him a conflict of interest that could ruin the game's quality.
Someone who is good at improving a certain aspect of the game might be eager, but not good at, improving other aspects of the game - thus privileges might have to be divided into categories. One category could be privileges related to estethics and imagery, another could be storyline-related, and yet another could be giving privilege to editors. The creator of a race should probably get a lot of privilege to edit properties of that race.

wodinoneeye

Dec 14, 2008 at 2:47 AM

It would require player created content to be addable to the MMO game.

First and foremost the tools to create/import the assets (scenery, objects, animations, behavior scripts, sounds, textures, game mechanics) would have to be created by the game company. Such tools are as big a project as creating the game engine if they are made well enough to be easily used by a majority of players.

Ive advocated this idea for quite a while and may be the future of 'better' games. Several levels of creation would be needed because only a few players have the programming skills abilities to make good/proper low level programming assets, but many are capable of modding/recombining existing assets.

The process of vetting content before it goes in the game is its own problem as many players think they can produce good content but fall short. There is also the matter of the changes following the games theme and balance systems.
Broken assest need to be thoroughly tested before the disrupt the main game (costing much more work to undo any damage) and placement in the game must fit properly.

Cpt Mothballs

Dec 14, 2008 at 4:18 PM

There are already a whole bunch of games like this.
I just can't remember their names.

There was one based in ancient roman times and another that also had player run governments as well.

Bah, curse my inability to retain specific information.

I'll have to go and check my old notes now.

Nichollan

Dec 15, 2008 at 7:31 AM

What the...?

Isn't anything I make up original?

I guess I should've expected that many of my thoughts may have been played with before, but this idea was like... crazy... or so I thought.

Andruil

Dec 15, 2008 at 8:54 AM

Quote:
Original post by Nichollan
What the...?

Isn't anything I make up original?

I guess I should've expected that many of my thoughts may have been played with before, but this idea was like... crazy... or so I thought.

Oh its probably been thought up before. That doesn't mean its actually been done before though. Not to the extent that you are taking it. It sounds rather interesting. Are you thinking of actually starting this?

[Edited by - Andruil on December 15, 2008 1:54:22 PM]

Nichollan

Dec 15, 2008 at 9:11 AM

I am thinking of starting something, but I haven't quite decided on what. In the meantime I'd like to see what people think of certain concepts.

Edit, just expanding on my idea:

One of the things that inspired this idea was the modding community that existed around the game Freelancer - and the different multiplayer servers that ran according to a combination of mods.

It probably makes sense to have several servers with seperate "wikis". Those who establish these servers might want to give themselves a lot of privilege so that they can make their world go in a certain direction. Some of these servers might be places where it is more acceptable to test new content.

I am actually thinking of editors of the "wikis" as Gods of the game. While these Gods should generally not favourize anyone in the realm, they can sometimes be allowed to make themselves known e.g. by incorporating a "religion" or statue within the game. They will probably play within the realm themselves, and might have received rewards for good editing which kind of gives them the "demigod" or "avatar" status.

[Edited by - Nichollan on December 15, 2008 9:11:10 AM]

Andruil

Dec 16, 2008 at 8:41 AM

Quote:
Original post by Nichollan
I am thinking of starting something, but I haven't quite decided on what. In the meantime I'd like to see what people think of certain concepts.

Edit, just expanding on my idea:

One of the things that inspired this idea was the modding community that existed around the game Freelancer - and the different multiplayer servers that ran according to a combination of mods.

It probably makes sense to have several servers with seperate "wikis". Those who establish these servers might want to give themselves a lot of privilege so that they can make their world go in a certain direction. Some of these servers might be places where it is more acceptable to test new content.

I am actually thinking of editors of the "wikis" as Gods of the game. While these Gods should generally not favourize anyone in the realm, they can sometimes be allowed to make themselves known e.g. by incorporating a "religion" or statue within the game. They will probably play within the realm themselves, and might have received rewards for good editing which kind of gives them the "demigod" or "avatar" status.

I would think that there would need to be a single person and / or group to maintain a single server. You could have it that anyone is allowed to host the game and by being the host you have ownership over the vision and how things get done. Since it is community driven those who don't like a particular person / group's vision can simply go elsewhere or start up their own server.

One thing to consider would be allowing players to move between servers. Perhaps you maintain a single database that keeps track of common objects between all games including players, stats and potentially gear. You could also maintain a list of approved servers which the users can then look at and decide which server to connect to. Things like weapons and armor may or may not be transferable between servers though. For example if you had a sci-fi version and a mythical version they might look wrong. Depending on how the mechanics work though it could actually be fun to set up modules that can be imported into the various games. So if one game makes a meteor shower spell then perhaps the other servers could also make use of it? I'm not entirely sure that would work without making it a part of the common base code.

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