Before reading this, please forgive several mistakes I might make, I'm constantly going over things I have previously typed, editing them, adding, subtracting sentences. Also I'd like to apologize in advance if people are tired of hearing about other people's ideas instead of coming here to learn about game development. I don't have the tools or money to try my hand at game programming. =(

Before I get started, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Aaron Sanders, I am a 21 year old male from a town of about 20,000 people called Pampa, located in Texas. I like to spend my free time listening to music, playing guitar, video games, reading books about the human mind, researching, and learning. I have dreams of being rich and famous so that maybe I can work towards improving the quality of the human race, helping people, donating money towards people who actually need it. Basically just trying to make the world a better place. Personally I am disgusted with this world and all the horrible people in it and I believe it's time for a change. Where I'm at right now, my dream looks like it won't happen, but I'm hoping that maybe this MMORPG Idea will be the key in helping people, that and I also think this game would be a really great idea.

Now I'm sure a bunch of people are here posting their "great" MMORPG ideas here in hopes of hitting it big and famous and becoming uber rich so they can spend the rest of their lives playing their video game in solitude and celibacy. I too share this same dream, only without the celibacy.

My game idea doesn't have to be restricted to the xbox 360, but I would prefer that it be started there if I can ever get my game idea to take off, also the game would require that your xbox 360 controller has an attached keyboard, or at least a regular ol' usb keyboard plugged into your 360. We are all here hoping that we can get our possibly unique and original MMORPG ideas out there, but the chances of this happening are highly unlikely. I do have to admit, I'm skeptical about putting my ideas out there because I, like many people, truly believe that given the chance, I could make money with my ideas and have fears of people copying or stealing ideas from me. I know my ideas may not be super original, but it's original enough in how I combine and utilize them. I have plans of adding a back story to the world you will be slung into, and have very few of my ideas jotted down on paper, due to working and personal reasons, I haven't invested much time in working out many kinks, most of the ideas are in my head, but here we go I guess..

I want my MMORPG to be a fast-paced game, filled with action, violence, secrets, and several other things. Instead of using the usual Race-Class style of character creation, I want to use a sort of "Element" based character. Take note of the fact that the word element is in quotation marks, seeing as how a couple of the "Elements" aren't in fact elements. There will be no level cap, what-so-ever, which may sound bad..but it just sucks when you have this completely amazing character, but your adventure slows down greatly due to hitting the level cap, so the rest of your time is spent on finding better armor, weapons and such. With their being no level cap, it will also become extremely hard to level as you get further up in levels, but there will be a reward given to those who show that they are not weak and powerless. Players who can manage to survive against their enemies and not die, will be given a survival XP bonus. There will be no bows or guns of any type in this game, this is due to the fact that it feels as if it would slow down the pace of the game. Each character of the game will be a battle mage of sorts, specialize both in magic and melee. You would have jobs, not necessarily classes, that you can pick from. If you wish, even change your job later to another. You can only be one job at a time, cannot change jobs outside of towns, and I haven't decided on whether or not I was going to limit the total number of jobs your character is allowed to have, though it seems wise to limit it. As a level 1, you could have no more than 1 job specialization until you hit maybe, level 20-30 or so. Equipment will level up as you use it. Equipment experience will be earned 1 per kill, and can only be earned from enemies near your level or above, as to avoid a level 50 character farming level 1 monsters for equipment experience. You can choose to allocate your EXP(We'll use "EXP" to refer to equipment XP, and leave XP be used as regular XP used for character leveling) among your weapons, armor, and such. (i.e. You have 100 EXP point, you can put 20 on your weapon, 20 on your chest plate, etc.) There will be a total of 12 "Elements" to choose from. Fire, Ice, Water, Lightning, Rock, Death, Soul, Demon, Light, Dark, and the Elemental "Race" (I know that's only 11, I'll edit this post later once I find my notebook or can remember what the other one was, I might just have to go with wind..), which will be a mixture of them all in a small way. Jobs will be beneficial mostly for their passive abilities in battle, they may have active abilities, this hasn't been decided yet. Each* Element have it's own set of of Strengths, Weaknesses, and Defenses(*Not pertaining to Elementals). Elementals will receive the most damage, with weaknesses, dish out the least in strengths, and has no defenses against the others. There is a reason for this. Here is how the Strengths, weaknesses, and defenses work, these are just quick examples. Fire-S:Ice 5%, Dark 2%, Soul 2%, Wind 1%, Elemental 6%. W-Water 5%, Rock 2%, Light 2%, Elemental 1%. P-Fire 10%, Demon 5%, Lightning 3%, Death 2%. As you see, Elementals have a huge downside, but they will get a skill with 5 levels that will take their weaknesses from 6% to 1% at level 5. Also, I'm sure alot of you will agree with me that it sucks when you have awesome looking armor, but you have to change your armor to another type just because it's better, and you hate how this new armor looks. Well this can be bypassed with the Decoration equipment window. Where you're allowed to take a piece of armor. (if you have it and are of lvl, and element to regularly wear it) place it in it's corresponding spot in the DE window, and it will show on your character, just without the benefits of the armor. So you'll have the benefits of the better armor, but look as though you're wearing the cool armor you like so much. This will also teach you one important lesson in pvp, don't judge a book by it's cover.

I still have plenty of more ideas to throw out there, I just want to post my post and get feedback. I apologize for just throwing all everything out there in a cluttered, unorganized mess, but like I said, I don't have many of my idea's on paper, I'm just telling you as I remember them.

Now I'm sure a bunch of people are here posting their "great" MMORPG ideas here in hopes of hitting it big and famous and becoming uber rich [/quote]Yes. Inexperienced people with great MMO ideas is indeed a long running stereotype. You've got about 18 million competitors that you'll have to distinguish yourself from.

My game idea doesn't have to be restricted to the xbox 360, but I would prefer that it be started there if I can ever get my game idea to take off[/quote]What's the business case for this?

I do have to admit, I'm skeptical about putting my ideas out there because I, like many people, truly believe that given the chance, I could make money with my ideas and have fears of people copying or stealing ideas from me.[/quote]Everyone's an "ideas man" - Ideas by themselves have literally zero value.
Fleshed out ideas (i.e. a design), with a business plan to go with it, have potential value. Ideas that are implemented (i.e. products) have value.

and have very few of my ideas jotted down on paper ... I haven't invested much time in working out many kinks[/quote]Non-existent ideas have less than zero value.

This is what i need help with, which is why I'm posting this same post on multiple sites. I need help, I don't know all the details of everything I'd need to take care of so I could get my idea out there and have any help. I may not be the most distinguished person, but I'm just trying something, anything I can. I need a change in my life for several personal reasons. I'm trying to do anything I can to make a change in my life, I know I didn't exactly choose the best market to try my hand in, but there's not much else I could really think of or that I could do.

Anyways, basically the gist of what I'm getting is that, even if my idea was good, it's not of value unless I take it further, which I have no way of doing unless I try making friends with game developers who I can take advantage of to make my game idea. So tell me this Hodgman, if you can..should i just give up while I'm ahead?

should i just give up while I'm ahead?[/quote]
You don't have to give up, but you may need to reconsider your approach. (For example, if you're new to game development, you'll probably want to start with something several orders of magnitude less complex than what you have in mind currently).

I don't have the tools or money to try my hand at game programming. =([/quote]
Trying your hand at game programming requires no money, and the tools are freely available. Provided you have a computer and an internet connection, there's nothing stopping you from at least giving it a go.

I clearly do have a computer and internet, but that doesn't mean I can use them freely as I wish. It's long and complicated, involving being black-mailed, forced out of a job, now living with my parents again, and seeing as this is my fathers computer, I can't download anything on it or he will kill me lol. I need ideas, help with making games. I do understand maybe I'm trying to shoot for something way too complex considering I really have no experience with this sort of thing, but I'd really like to find people who could help my idea come to fruition. I know I'm taking a bad approach by trying to go straight from a-z and skipping everything I need in-between, I'm just desperate for a change in life. Also I do have to say making a game alone would be a difficult task for me, and I'm not talking about the MMORPG idea, but just making even a super simple "Click the circle and you win" kind of game would probably be beyond what I could handle. The best I can be is an idea generator, which isn't obviously the only quality needed if I wanted to make a game.

There's nothing wrong with having lofty goals or seemingly impossible dreams. Unless what you're proposing breaks the real world laws of physics somehow, it should be achievable. However, you need to realise that it may take a long time. As others have said, ideas are worth nothing. Anyone can have an idea, but it takes balls to believe in your idea enough to put in the years of hard work to see it come to fruition.

Unfortunately, even if you develop your idea in depth and work out all the kinks, you'll still have trouble getting anyone interested in it, as the real hard work comes in the design and implementation. It may be the case that you end up having to get your hands dirty and code it yourself.

I'm not trying to burst your bubble, as you're obviously quite passionate about your idea, but the reality is that creating an MMO is possibly the hardest thing a game designer can do.

I'm quite aware of how difficult this task is going to be. Probably something far harder than I can handle. I was talking to someone else on another forum about my gaming idea and I guess what it's coming down to is me learning some programming (I kind of figured I'd have to). If anyone out there is willing to help to help me more along the way though, that'd be great. I'd love to have more people working on this idea with me and helping my dreams come true.

Ok, ok. let's slow down a second and back up.

For one, what are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to work in the video game industry professionally? Do you love games and just want to make one or two, but aren't looking to make a career out of it?

Game development's actually quite a bit like portrait painting, in my mind. It's a highly creative, technically demanding specialization. When you have people come in with their MMO ideas, it's like coming up and saying "Guys I've never painted before but I think the Mona Lisa is badass. I have this idea for a painting the Mona Lisa pile driving a shark do you think this would be a sweet painting? How would I make it?", to which we respond "Sure that might be cool, but maybe you should try learning how to sketch first and work your way up to it?"

From what I understand, you rarely have a dude who just sits around and makes up ideas about games. There is no shortage of sweet game ideas, to be perfectly honest. What the industry lacks are people who can make those ideas into playable games. Even for a pure game designer, the art is not coming up with a great idea, but being able to strap your chariot to that great idea, ride it through a gauntlet of technical limitations, project delays, budget limitations, etc and still have a great game at the end of it.

If you do want to make games, and you don't have any pre-existing skills in doing so, it could take years before you can make anything of consequence. It really depends on the person, though. If you actually want to do it, though, don't let that scare you off. If it's your passion, then follow it! Do something amazing with your life, make sweet games. Usually the limiting factors with individuals are drive and tenacity; so long as you can muster those you can do just about anything you want. If you're more like, "I like games and would love to make money off of them, I have this cool idea that would sell well", there are quicker and easier ways to make money.

At the top of the forum is some sort of thing about faqs. They're a good read and can give you an idea what sort of jobs/and/or specializations exist in game development. The cool thing about game development is that breadth of talents it brings together. Artists, programmers, businessmen, legal experts, marketing, web development, writers, composers, many many disciplines are involved. Odds are, you'll be able to find something you can do that can contribute to making games, or can find a specialization that appeals to your own unnurtured talents.

Edit: Oh, you can also get really rich and hire guys to make a game for you based on your ideas.

I know there are plenty of other ways to get rich, and as I said in a previous post, I know I'm taking a bad approach by trying to jump from a straight to z, and skipping everything in between. But the truth is, I don't know much about making video games, but I would really like to make a great MMORPG. I know this would take alot of time and dedication to the idea, and it would also require alot of money for this idea to come to life. Part of why I'm here is in hopes of finding people who might be willing to help me with the game, maybe some people to help teach me a couple things. I've been posting my ideas on a couple forums to get feedback, which is one of the main reasons I was posting my game idea online, nobody has actually told me what they think of any ideas presented. I know not many of them are too original, I just want a kind of small idea of what people would think. There's a lot more I'd want to do with the game, I haven't gone over the game play or anything, just seemed pointless to since I know I'm not going to luckily stumble across 20 guys with spare time and game development skills who would want to get to work immediately. =P

Part of why I'm here is in hopes of finding people who might be willing to help me with the game, maybe some people to help teach me a couple things. I've been posting my ideas on a couple forums to get feedback, which is one of the main reasons I was posting my game idea online, nobody has actually told me what they think of any ideas presented. I know not many of them are too original, I just want a kind of small idea of what people would think.

For Beginners is a technical forum (as stated on the forums main page). "I've got an idea" topics belong in Game Design (so I'm moving this there).
Please do not post Help Wanted topics outside of the Help Wanted forum. There's a specific required format for HW posts.