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An avid MMO player with revolutionary ideas for the next generation

Started by Pozessed420 Jul 2, 2011 at 6:38 PM 9 replies 4k views

Original Post

Jul 2, 2011 at 6:38 PM

First I would like to say that I am not a programmer in the least. I have tried dabbleing but it is not for me. I would also like to add that I am not here to say "OMG these ideas are uber put them in your next game" either. The purpose of this post is to help you developers gain some feedback from an experienced MMO player of what myself and some fellow gamers find as very much needed improvements in the next generation of MMORPGs.

With all that being said, I hope I still have some of your attention.

This is all a personal opinion so please don't flame me for stating it. I used to play a game called Turf Battles. This game was ahead of its time by a long shot seeing as no game has come out that is moderately close to being as good as this game once was, The game closed down in 2004-2005, and hasn't been able to be brought back since. Aeria tried but failed and I can't see the game returning anytime soon. Therefore it is up to the next developers to create something as spectacular as this game.

Continuing on, What made this game unique was that it had a level cap of 300, A large guild size that was equivalent to the leaders level. Large inventory space, sharable warehouse stashes as long as you know how to spell the other players name correctly. Pets that would level as long as you were logged into the game, and the would also increase the players stat points. A high experience rate, party experience was greatly increased to encourage partying and to stimulate the community. Power leveling was encouraged and not shunned.
End game was not a difficult feat to obtain yet the replay value was extremely high. The reason for this was because of the PvP system. It was open world PvP, and also there were PvP islands open 24/7. The PvP islands are what sets this game apart from ALL MMORPGs on the market today.
The PvP islands were level bracketed like so, level 50-90, 80-120, 110-160, 150-200, 200+. A player would have their main character that they would level to 200+, but they would also make a seperate character for every PvP island
The way the islands worked was this, a person from a guild would enter a crystal onto the island. Once on the island they would hunt for the islands guardian. If the player kills the guardian their whole guild can farm the mobs on the island for gems to upgrade their gear or sell them in their shop for money. In the mean time the guild would have to kill invading guilds while they farm for their gems.
After 30 minutes the guardian would respawn and the guild that controls the island would have to protect the guardian from invading tribes. Once the invaders kill the guardian the process repeats itself.

There is more to this game, but those are the basics. If anyone is interested in more I would be glad to give more details, but I dont want to babble on if the administrators think that this post is out of line or unneeded. However I do appreciate anyone who took the time to read this entire post, and I'd like to thank everyone in advance for any kind or constructively criticized comments that you may have.

(btw, there are still videos on youtube from turf battles if anyone is interested in seeing the game in action.)

Bigdeadbug

Jul 2, 2011 at 9:38 PM

Continuing on, What made this game unique was that it had a level cap of 300, A large guild size that was equivalent to the leaders level. Large inventory space, sharable warehouse stashes as long as you know how to spell the other players name correctly. Pets that would level as long as you were logged into the game, and the would also increase the players stat points. A high experience rate, party experience was greatly increased to encourage partying and to stimulate the community. Power leveling was encouraged and not shunned.[/quote]

I think you may need to expand on most of the points on the section i quoted above to give a sense of why such elements where so great when incorporated within the game. For example why was a level cap of 300 so good? What was the benefit of pets levels while the player was logged on instead of say in tandem with the as they levelled? By large inventory space what do you exactly mean? How was the act of power levelling encouraged? On that last point i would also point out that i don't know many games that discourage power levelling on its own, its only when you start to pay someone else to do it for you that companies take a dim view of it.

The endgame you speak of does seem interesting but was there more to endgame content that just this?

Also if possible could you list any flaws that the game had?

Xandamere

Jul 3, 2011 at 6:38 AM

So, I used to work at Aeria, and am familiar with Turf Battles. It had a very passionate, though unfortunately somewhat small community.

I think the broad idea that you're getting at with the island battles is that it had meaningful PvP. That is, by successful completing a PvP objective (taking over and holding an island), a group of players could benefit in other areas of the game (getting access to rare and valuable items). Now I don't want to sound like a jerk, but that isn't exactly revolutionary. It is, however, a very GOOD idea (very few good ideas are actually all that revolutionary, in my experience).

I think we're going to see an evolution of virtual worlds within the next few years. Players will get bored of recycled WoW clones that are solely based on the standard PvE mechanics...kill bosses to get gear so you can kill more bosses so you can get more gear, repeat ad naseum. I think we're going to start seeing virtual worlds in which players' actions have an impact on the world, whether it's via direct PvP, large-scale warfare, building stuff, or more social means. Sort of what Ultima Online originally tried for, but now we can incorporate all of the added experience of the hundreds of virtual worlds that have come since, along with the huge increases in technology.

Luckless

Jul 3, 2011 at 1:37 PM

I think we're going to start seeing virtual worlds in which players' actions have an impact on the world, whether it's via direct PvP, large-scale warfare, building stuff, or more social means. Sort of what Ultima Online originally tried for, but now we can incorporate all of the added experience of the hundreds of virtual worlds that have come since, along with the huge increases in technology.

You mean something similar to what EVE Online has been doing for years?

Xandamere

Jul 3, 2011 at 4:13 PM

Yes. As I said, it isn't revolutionary. Eve's done it, as well as a few other smaller games.

I think we'll be seeing more and more of it.

Luckless

Jul 3, 2011 at 11:32 PM

Wurm Online is another interesting one people should look into. I haven't seen it mentioned much in the past year or two on here, and I kind of stopped following the progress of it.

sunandshadow

Jul 4, 2011 at 12:21 AM

Sounds like it's similar to Dofus in several ways.

j-dog

Jul 4, 2011 at 8:43 AM

[sup]Beware of throwing terms such as "revolutionary" around - I feel that it's a somewhat abuse term in the industry, as many developers seem to think that injecting RPG elements to any other genre somehow makes it revolutionary.

Besides that though, I have heard of turf wars but am not too familiar with it. I don't know, I feel uneasy about the entire genre - still, I think a lot of games which did not turn out quite as well as they should (and consequently did not get too much attention) get overlooked and often maintain fantastic ideas. I think ultima online also had some great concepts, and it wasn't purely a numbers game unlike what WoW essentially is. Holding islands sounds interesting, but perhaps elaborate on why turf wars was say, better than WoW in some respects? Some contrast would help illustrate your points
[/sup]

Elovoid

Jul 4, 2011 at 9:12 AM

The PVP part sounds like Dark Ages of Camelot and Darkness Falls PvE/PVP Dungeon.
Raid in the PVP Area, gain hold of enough castles, control the entrance to the Darkness Falls Dungeon, run inside, kill all the remaining PVP enemies and then farm the Dungeon for PvE stuff until another realm captures enough castles.
Combine that with relics that strengthen the whole realm controlling the castle that hosts the realms relics until they are claimed by another realm (passive bonus to magic, melee and stuff)

Meaningful pvp and fun to play (for some and to some extend)

Like others I don't blame you for not being revolutionary. I'd like to see those elements in more games (others tried or implemented things like DAoC) and I think it#s a good idea but as Bigdeadbug said, you have to go into details why you think the elements you mentioned are indeed good and how they add to the game (as well as why they might not work in other games / settings).

Pozessed420

Jul 4, 2011 at 4:12 PM

Hey hey, I just wanted to post really quick and let you all know I have been reading. I will post back replies to everyone shortly. I just havent had a whole lot of time and I like to reply in the order that posts were received. (just a pet peeve of mine.)
Anyways, thank you all for showing an interest and I'll have a response sometime tomorrow when I have more time.

Varine

Jul 4, 2011 at 8:28 PM

I'm not really seeing the part with revolutionary ideas. From what I gather you want to remake Turf Wars and that's about the extent of where you got (which isn't necessarily a bad idea, just saying it's not really a new idea...)

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