My current concept for a world. I will provide explanations as to why I decided upon certain aspects of the world when requested, but I would like to keep this as brief as possible for the time being(at work, shh):

World: Chern
Setting: Fantasy
Earth influences on game world: Olmec, India(n), Japanese, Norse, Gaelic, Greek, German, Catholic, Christian. These aren't direct Earth to Chern influences, just the type of cultures that can be seen in the world.

The world of Chern is a place for second chances. In the history of the universe there have been countless times where creatures have been forced to the brink of annihilation. On occasion the Gods have taken it upon themselves to intervene on behalf of these creatures, not always to the benefit of the creatures. Taken away from certain death these creatures found themselves on Chern. Though they may have been relieved of their original fate they must forge a new one on Chern amongst the amalgamation of those that have been saved, those that have been cursed, and those that live unaware of the conflict that surrounds them.

Gameplay:

You select your domain and then choose from one of five available races per domain. You enter the world as a "cursed" being that your domain has elevated above mere mortals. Cursed may be the term used, but there are those that would believe that such an existence should be considered to be a blessing, not a curse. You are alive, you are mortal, yet you cannot be sent to the afterlife upon death, you merely return to Chern to continue living until the curse is lifted.

The first task one must take upon finding out they are cursed is to train as one of thirteen different classes(13 per Domain). You cannot change your class once selected without remaking your character. Your character will have start as level 1 and the maximum level is 50. Experience towards these levels can be gained through PVE, PVP(Domain vs Domain), or crafting. Yes, you can level purely through crafting! It most likely won't be the fastest way, or the most profitable, but it will be a possibility. Along with character levels there will be skill levels. Character levels are more of a way to provide for attribute acquisition and limiting the maximum skill levels available based on character level. Skill levels are only gained through using skills/abilities that are linked to the skill line. You may be a great Carpenter, but that doesn't mean you are a great fighter, you have to train in the arts of combat to become a great fighter.

NPC villages/cities will be limited. It is up to the players to earn the right to establish towns. Once enough players own homes, if in close proximity, they can agree to form a town. Once this town is established the players must develop the town and protect it or it could fall to ruin. NPC raiders, eventually even NPC armies, will be able to attack the towns. Personal houses can't be destroyed by NPCs, but town buildings can be. The towns themselves are more than just a place for people to setup shops, own homes and the like. The more prosperous the towns are the greater benefit they provide to your domain. The larger the towns the more NPCs are made available to become guards to defend keeps, the greater quality of manufacturing the better equipped the guards can be, and the larger the target the town becomes bringing in much more dangerous NPC foes that drop much more lucrative materials.


PVE Player cities
Domain vs Domain combat; includes keep sieges and open field combat alike
Lower power curve than typical MMORPGs to provide a more balanced, enjoyable experience
Crafting is the primary way to acquire gear., gear breaks down through use
Domain Ranks
Taming; includes tamable mounts

Ran out of time... sorry I didn't get it all in there. Ask any questions and post any thoughts. Thanks.

The first task one must take upon finding out they are cursed is to train as one of thirteen different classes(13 per Domain). You cannot change your class once selected without remaking your character..

Why disallow people from changing?

[quote name='Caldenfor' timestamp='1303857516' post='4803263']<br />The first task one must take upon finding out they are cursed is to train as one of thirteen different classes(13 per Domain). You cannot change your class once selected without remaking your character..

Why disallow people from changing?[/quote]

I want to try and make the game as fair for everyone involved as possible as it is a competitive atmosphere. If people can bypass challenges by playing the "easier" class, then switching to the "harder" class, it takes away from those that worked through the challenges as the hard class to begin with. The only way I could see allowing class changes would be if everything about the character aside from their belongings was reset. Character level, Domain rank, attributes, skills, reputation, all back to fresh start status. If you gain Domain rank 8 by playing a Rajput(heavy melee) and then you switch over to a Sage(caster) and maintain that Domain rank 8, you didn't really earn it as a Sage, thus fudging the experience and taking away from the efforts of those that earned Domain rank 8 as a Sage.

There will be multiple character slots available per server per account and leveling doesn't take an extremely excessive amount of time like other games are prone to do. I don't want people to fear starting a new character. They can group with maxed out characters from level 1 on and still gain experience. I don't want one character to be able to have every experience possible in the game, but I don't want to have that same limit for the player's themselves.

[quote name='Caldenfor' timestamp='1303857516' post='4803263']
The first task one must take upon finding out they are cursed is to train as one of thirteen different classes(13 per Domain). You cannot change your class once selected without remaking your character..

Why disallow people from changing?
[/quote]

Any opinions on the world itself? I have taken a stab at writing a sci-fi novel, then I realized while I have it all laid out and it sounds great, I don't feel that I can write at that level which gives me doubts to my overall writing/creative capacity.

A few of the class names by domain...

Eagle Warrior
Knight
Bard
Bloodletter
Cleric

Waylayer
Samurai
Kannushi
Shramana
Sage

Berserker
Sicarii
Friar
Hoplite
Theurgist

The first Domain has Mesoamerican/Christian/Gaelic influence.
The second has India/Japan/German influence.
The third has Norse/Christian/Greek influence.

All of the influences aren't strictly linked to earth history, but that is where some is inspired from. Each domain will have a human race select available, which is part of the influence. Most on Chern shun technology as they feel that it leads to offending the gods, and on occasion, the gods have proven that feeling to be valid.

Any opinions on the world itself? I have taken a stab at writing a sci-fi novel, then I realized while I have it all laid out and it sounds great, I don't feel that I can write at that level which gives me doubts to my overall writing/creative capacity.

Well, I'm not personally a fan of seeing historical cultures or religious influences appear in futuristic settings. I kind of like the idea of an experimentally-minded deity who rescues failing species (or whatever) to give them a second chance or perhaps remix them into something more functional; I'm usually not a fan of seeing gods appear at all in game stories, but my interest in seeing humans placed inside experiments outweighs that. There doesn't seem to be a lot of other information about the world here, I'd classify the rest under gameplay mechanics. Of those I'm interested in tame-able mounts, but disinterested by the idea of player-created towns (because I'm a lone wolf who dislikes too much socialization in my gameplay, as I was talking about a few posts ago). I think the idea of some classes being harder than others is conceptually interesting but I'm not sure I actually like it. And I have an overall preference where I can experience most of the game with a single character, it breaks my mental immersion to switch between characters, especially more than 2. Usually I end up regarding one character as 'me' and the others as mules with little personality or story.


I end up not commenting on a lot of the story and world ideas posted in this forum, usually because I'm not part of their target audience or don't like the whole subgenre, not because I have any complaint about the particular idea. It's just very difficult for me to think of something helpful and positive to say about a game concept that isn't the kind of thing I'd ever be interested in playing, though I'm sure there are other people out there who would be interested.

I'll return to our topic sometime again sunandshadow, certainly been interesting to discuss the systems and ideas, dont want to publicly post all the rest of them just now so maybe we can discuss them in private sometime later.

Still on topic I am interested to share ideas on how you would work on taking away the fast "get boring" factor from a crafting oriented game that has no combat, I am thinking that one good way would be an entertaining storyline behind the world and NPC players.

At some point I even imagined creating something like monthly mangas/comics revolving around NPC characters, again more on this maybe in private.

The other obvious try is to make the whole crafting game so interesting and addicting that people would never or just take a long time to get bored. Not a simple task...

In game world puzzles, tricky requirements to explore a land? As we discussed before, good or bad I wonder. In any case if you have idea you'd like to share be my guest.

Caldenfor@ I am no expert in that direction that you are going to but do you really need all those classes? Sometimes its better to keep short and expand later, plus I believe it'll be so much harder to come up with different skill trees for each one of them.

Also I believe adding a political, or religious views to a game is a bad idea due to "political and religious racism" however there are many games that are exceptions to this rule. Just make sure not to give one or other "more power"

SabataS, if your goal is for the game to be non-violent, why not substitute for combat with non-violent versions of similar gameplay? Racing, sim gameplay, card or board games, and other minigames? Neopets is an interesting example - it has a large pool of minigames, most of which are non-violent. Players 'earn their daily gold' by playing these minigames up to three times per day per game. Puzzle Pirates is another example - most of their minigames are non-violent too, and players can either due them for pay for the NPC navy, or do them to give an advantage to the player ship they are crewing for. Now, for an MMO it's preferable to incorporate the games into the world more. Fishing is a really obvious example, because many RPGs incorporate a fishing minigame, but most of them are terrible games, such as the one in WoW and the one in Harvest Moon; the secret is to make each game something complex enough to require thought, and something players would enjoy on it's own and play even if there was no reward.

Of course, it's a lot of designwork and effort to create a dozen really good minigames. This kind of thing is more appropriate to add to an MMO after you have a working alpha version.


I personally like in-game-world puzzles which must be solved to unlock things. Ideally, these should have some randomization to them so they will not be something where people just go to the game's wiki and read the answers.

[quote name='Caldenfor' timestamp='1303998151' post='4803960']
Any opinions on the world itself? I have taken a stab at writing a sci-fi novel, then I realized while I have it all laid out and it sounds great, I don't feel that I can write at that level which gives me doubts to my overall writing/creative capacity.

Well, I'm not personally a fan of seeing historical cultures or religious influences appear in futuristic settings. I kind of like the idea of an experimentally-minded deity who rescues failing species (or whatever) to give them a second chance or perhaps remix them into something more functional; I'm usually not a fan of seeing gods appear at all in game stories, but my interest in seeing humans placed inside experiments outweighs that. There doesn't seem to be a lot of other information about the world here, I'd classify the rest under gameplay mechanics. Of those I'm interested in tame-able mounts, but disinterested by the idea of player-created towns (because I'm a lone wolf who dislikes too much socialization in my gameplay, as I was talking about a few posts ago). I think the idea of some classes being harder than others is conceptually interesting but I'm not sure I actually like it. And I have an overall preference where I can experience most of the game with a single character, it breaks my mental immersion to switch between characters, especially more than 2. Usually I end up regarding one character as 'me' and the others as mules with little personality or story.


I end up not commenting on a lot of the story and world ideas posted in this forum, usually because I'm not part of their target audience or don't like the whole subgenre, not because I have any complaint about the particular idea. It's just very difficult for me to think of something helpful and positive to say about a game concept that isn't the kind of thing I'd ever be interested in playing, though I'm sure there are other people out there who would be interested.
[/quote]

Preface: My apologies. This post started out as two paragraphs and then... one thing led to another. I won't be offended if you don't want to read it, but I was trying to provide more of a grasp as to what to expect from the world. Summary = Not futuristic, no earth religions, player cities will be the PVE hubs to replace stagnant NPC villages/towns/cities, related thoughts.

I am sorry if it came across as a futuristic endeavor, it isn't that at all. It would most likely be considered medieval, but I don't want there just to be European Medieval influence and be done with it. I want to include a few other of the available historical design influences to give the Domains different feels. If they all play and look the same, no fun in that. Catholic/Christian influences were only mentioned as that is where the terminology and the overall basis for a few of the classes are, i.e. Paladin, Cleric, Priest, Friar. The two religions won't exist in the game. Some of the belief systems for cultures in the game will certainly have some religious inspiration, but I do not want any modern religious conflicts to be able to cause trouble amongst the players. Religion is a part of history and a great big chunk of society, so how can it be ignored for inspiration?

One of the technologies that the Gods smothered out was the creation of black powder. It was going to be used by a Domain to gain supremacy over the other Domains... [color="#ff0000"]guess the Gods like a fair competition too?

Player cities are not required for play, but they will be the "hubs" of the PVE world. They would also be one of the "end game" PVE activities as the cities would be attacked by stronger forces the larger the city became. I am hoping this helps take care of static NPC villages/cities getting stagnant and boring. There is even potential for world events to be established, with hints of the event to come, to bring players together in large PVE battles to defend the cities. I felt that it would bring something to the game for the PVE side of the game as it would give non-PVP players, and PVP players alike, something to participate in on a larger scale. Cities would provide places for players to establish shops, craft goods, trade wares, get together, and generally just live out of it.

The current inception of player cities would have it that a certain number of personal properties are required to be within a certain radius to initiate the process. It could be comparable to starting a guild, the person initiating the process would have to belong to a guild, with a minimum amount of people that must agree to form the city or it won't form. The individual wouldn't control the city, the guild they are in would, and there would be settings within the guild settings hierarchy privileges to determine which ranks within the guild would be able to perform certain functions, up to the Guild Master/Officers to set restrictions. The guild that runs the player city would then be able to plan the layout of the city, follow up with developing it, and protecting it. Non-guild members could certainly be of assistance as the cities once established would then provide bonuses to the Domain by increasing the capabilities of the Domain(NPCs) to defend the Domain from their enemies, which assists players in Domain vs Domain conflict that involves NPCs(Guard Patrols/Keep Fights/Etc). Creating a player city is going to be easy, but developing a successful and long lasting city will not be. Just because a guild may earn the privilege to start a city within the Domain does not mean they will be able to do it well as I hope for it to be a challenge to the players, not just a side show that takes no effort. Only player city buildings can be destroyed by PVE, not personal houses.

The main issue I see with this process of guild operated player cities would be that if a player has a problem with a guild they may enter the city intent on causing trouble. Giving the players the capability of policing their own city is very tempting, but I haven't been able to figure out a way to make it work without bringing up other issues. Being able to "evict" a property owner that has placed in an effort to impede the city's development could be very useful. I think that the eviction would have to be handled in a way that the player being evicted wouldn't actually lose anything in the process, their home or the possessions inside. Perhaps a more appropriate system would require that the guild's city planner must establish a plot and give permission to the homeowner to start building their house within the city limits. Houses placed before the city was formed could be grandfathered and it would be up to the guild to work with the individual on a solution to the problem, if one exists. Another system that could be employed would be to be able to banish people from the city. This would certainly have to be tested and fleshed out.

Another issue I will hear of is that people don't want player housing/cities to congest the landscape and block content. That isn't intended at all and I hope to have prohibited areas established to prevent housing from going in specific areas as well as making ownership less trivial/easy. There will be a one house per account restriction to help limit the number of homes available to be placed. Homes that are not maintained will fall down. It will take a while, but if you don't do any home repairs it will eventually collapse and your possessions will fall on the ground! Just hire a carpenter/architect to come by and do the work if you can't do it yourself. There would also need to be a system setup to collapse homes that aren't visited at all by their owners/co-owners. It would be in addition to the housing repairs so you not only have to actively visit/use your home you have to keep it repaired. I decided against employing a "tax/rent" system to avoid having cash sinks. If there is a problem with inflation it may be altered in the future. The landscape of the game will also be designed to be larger than your typical MMORPGs as travel will be above average in speed, every character can sprint!, to provide more room for tactical strategies in Domain vs Domain combat along with and more room for housing so it doesn't invade upon PVE content too much.

Raiding as in WoW/Rift/etc won't exist. Dungeons are to be kept persistent(separated by zone line from the seamless world) and shared by all those that enter it, no group instances/raid instances as that is not something that fits into the overall concept. [color="#000000"]Shared dungeons give lone wolves more of a chance to experience dungeons? There will certainly be challenging encounters around the world, but they will be shared content for the entire server, not for a handful of select individuals. In the area where all three domains connect in the PVP landscape I intend to provide some neutral things, PVE and PVP, for the different Domains to all fight for. Always had an idea for a Giant's castle with different corridors(slaves/servants) and tunnels(vermin/home invaders) for the players to travel and fight within. They couldn't use steps intended for a giant so they would have to travel via these methods where they would encounter those that share the same pathways.

It would be most easily comparable to a non-subterranean Darkness Falls(DAoC RVR/PVE dungeon) with Legion(end boss) being replaced by a Giant that is pissed off at you for invading his castle. When the Giant is defeated in an epic battle there is potential for him having been in possession of an object of power where the survivors of their masters demise would erect a fortification inside the Giant's castle around the object that would later be able to be conquered by players to give that bonus to the controlling Domain, thus a target of interest for all domains to fight over is formed. Or, you could just have the Giant respawn and allow others on the server to attempt the epic encounter as well. If the first, I did intend on having Giants come to the castle upon hearing of the previous owners demise, I mean, what Giant isn't looking for an already built castle to live in? This would have the same result as having a Giant respawn just delayed and providing the object of power fort encounter to exist during the Giant's exile.

Sorry for the rambling. I get caught up in thoughts at this time of day.

Caldenfor@ I am no expert in that direction that you are going to but do you really need all those classes? Sometimes its better to keep short and expand later, plus I believe it'll be so much harder to come up with different skill trees for each one of them.

It may seem like a lot, but it isn't going to be as in depth as having 39 completely different classes. It would be similar to how Dark Age of Camelot had their classes setup. Each Domain will have access to the same capabilities, but they will be split differently amongst the classes for each Domain. I have each realm having an Archer, Assassin, Tank, Melee DPS, Melee Hybrid, Healer, Healer Hybrid, Caster Hybrid, Caster, Caster Summoner, and Tamer. The Hybrid addition means that there will be a Melee, Healer, Caster, and two Support subroles attached to these classes. One Domain has a Melee/Support, Healer/Melee, Caster/Healer, Caster Summoner/Support, and a Tamer/Caster. The next would have a Melee/Caster, Healer/Support, Caster/Support, Caster Summoner/Healer, and a Tamer/Melee. The third would have Melee/Healer, Healer/Caster, Caster/Support, Caster Summoner/Support and a Tamer/Melee. I had to keep the secondary role of Support and Healer away from the Tamer classes for hopefully obvious reasons. I feel that Tamers could easily get out of balance if they are handed extra healing and support capabilities. They will have their own personalities, but for the sake of balancing them the major difference would be how they would work with their pet(s) to do damage.

I hope this makes sense. Each Domain would have access to almost all of the same ability capabilities, just expressed differently and arranged differently depending on the Domain and the Class. Class unique abilities will exist, just not a complete set of unique abilities for each of the 39 different classes.

I think you might be interested in reading what people actually want on mmorpg.com. After reading about 20 threads of the same "historians" and "new kids" arguing back and forth the formation of a want list was created based on the reasonable aspects of their ideas and arguments. I'll go over some of the wants and desires of both sides. Amazingly, any indie team can deliver these aspects into a mmog.

1. Players simply want as many optional mini games as possible, and they require a reward or some in game changing events for winning and losing.
2. Destroy the healer class along with every other class and make every skill available in some kind of combination process and skill support system with the exception of skills based on certain items the player needs equipped.
3. Allow the player to build their character, city, guild, raid, mount, pet, and items their own way with as much control given to them as possible.
4. Players want stability, top notch connections, and also availability of the mmog.
5. Players are willing to pay for subscriptions or cash shop items that don't ruin the balance of the game, and yes most of the people posting for this were cheap skate idiots looking for a lot for no cost to them at all.

I actually have around 25 reasonable additions any "developer" can add totheir mmog list, but "6. The mmog should be complete and without bugs" is a big pet peeve that makes games or breaks games this age.

Hope that helps, and yes no matter how much a idea may sound good, may smell good, may seem to sell good, you need to be able to hear the cries of the people before you go into a epic stun lock of ideas. Down right to the formula, games are meant to make money by immersion alongside fun.