I got disciplined for my last post. I didn't realize the error I'm thankful to say was brought to my attention, but now I have the proper permissions to post a link to the OP on another sight for review and discussion here mainly, but if you have a membership there the topic kinda went flat so any positive posts or curious posts will be welcomed and answered in good time. I tend to get tied up in RL just trying to pay the bills, but I won't let more than 4 weeks tops pass without a check in I can assure you.

http://www.indiedb.com/forum/thread/lore-mythology-to-rpg-sim

The infamous link, now we can discuss it, and spitball any suggestions or idea's and complementary feedback that will serve to prove the foundation is solid or no.

The short of it is a genre blinder with RST & RPG focus, but possibly a fighting game aspect for duels.

Did you even write the text behind the linky ??

Anyway, sounds like the typical "oh this sounds so cool even though i have no idea how to implement it." (nor why players actually playing the game would think it 's fun)

Looks like a good example of "overscoped" unless you're a AAA company.

It's way too vague to say much about, but I can say that it doesn't seem very well-thought out IMHO.
For instance, if there are a set number of gods, and they stop playing, the entire game world has changed.   If gods are supposed to be important, they need a good way to affect a LOT of players, not just the ones they pick on.
Plus, no one will want to pay a lot of money unless the game is successful.

That's just a few points.  I'm not trying to be mean, but whoever wrote that didn't put nearly enough thought or research into it.

On 2/14/2018 at 2:14 PM, Timmmmmmmmmm.. T said:

Looks like a good example of "overscoped" unless you're a AAA company.

It's way too vague to say much about, but I can say that it doesn't seem very well-thought out IMHO.
For instance, if there are a set number of gods, and they stop playing, the entire game world has changed.   If gods are supposed to be important, they need a good way to affect a LOT of players, not just the ones they pick on.
Plus, no one will want to pay a lot of money unless the game is successful.

That's just a few points.  I'm not trying to be mean, but whoever wrote that didn't put nearly enough thought or research into it.

Sounds like a good example of how can a troll this guy and try to blanket assess things I have no idea about in broad equally vague brushstrokes of ignorance. Since you can't follow directions and not troll me, I'm going to be a civil as I can with you.

1. Vague is the point, the only explained components are mentioned. It's a creation game, so player idea's will figure highly, but there will be implementable data provided that is within the game engine's limits.

2. I'm glad your honest opinion isn't the industry standard else I fear for the majority of games being developed under such a narrow scope of thought.

3. The server will be dedicated to the god player accounts, but there will be engine AI, as the obvious duh. They could not play for months and the AI will have run without them, with no need for their interaction. They could quit, and it would run. You seem to be overlooking stupidity on that front would have to be programed in to the core code to allow such an idiotic failure.

4. You suck at reading comprehension, IMHO. The gods can and will effect the entire world indirectly. The thing about gods is they take a break from physical interactions and focus on subtlety in mortal lives, (a recovery period after god war) and there are various phases of server interaction in the stages of change you seem to not grasp the concept of at all. It's a basic RPG theme dating as far back as the 1970's; the gods fought and are now feeding on the worship of followers to recharge their greater powers.

5. A lot of money? No one said a lot of money. You said a lot of money. A lot of players paying a little money is the right approach, but I'm thinking it should phase out to less expensive payment over time and never confer an advantage if you join later after world creation. We'd sell cosmetic customization items and skills, but nothing to effect game leveling or power. That will be up to the player to earn in game. The only advantaged players will have spent the extra money early to be mighty, but no one account is "Critical" to game progression. However, certain "champions" could be chosen at the whim of a god player and be made greater.

Rather than thinking you know everything that could or would arise from development, you should consider that the team may interject missing parameters or remove existing elements at will as the creation comes together. You may also take the exclusive intellect cap off and consider every word you are thinking as having been thought of 20 times and forgotten before you ever typed it, but thanks.

Now we don't have to cover it all again.

On 2/14/2018 at 9:14 AM, Dramolion said:

Did you even write the text behind the linky ??

Anyway, sounds like the typical "oh this sounds so cool even though i have no idea how to implement it." (nor why players actually playing the game would think it 's fun)

1. Yes, I wrote the text.

2. And yes it sounds cool, and no, I do have a way and means to see it through that doesn't involve too much work in new code or high graphic output. Low poly can work in some key phases, but the main cosmetics would look great. I could get a studio to do it, but I'd rather brainstorm it with my own team and do it right, not rushed.

3. I play tons of MMORPG's, that's first off. Most suck and seem like a cheap rushed to shelf/steam clone of WoWC. I would love to play this game in all it's phases and aim for god dominance from the first beta launch. The common app testing non-player would pass on this. The old school "Vampire Masquerade" crowd would love it and live on the server every waking second RL provided to their hobby. Any DM from the AD&D world would at least try it if they are a true world driver. And a few GM's from other games might like to try it. The crowd for the god foundations is there albeit a touch exclusive and likely not the under 20 player. I'm thinking of even allowing winning and staying god player direct seats on the dev and admin councils for server life.

The main draw, is that no one world server in this game would be remotely the same as the last one or the next one, and many players find that very appealing in a jungle of titles that are the exact same trash.

Any post's not focused on being rude or negative, at all?

You're far too aggressive. You came to this forum to get opinions, so we're giving them. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, but have the courtesy to treat us with respect. To me, there are some fundamental flaws with your idea, but it isn't impossible:

1. What you have described so far is player-driven lore. Not game mechanics, which is where player retention will be. When you open up an MMO, are you there because the story is interesting? No, that's just a bonus (a very rare bonus). You're there because the game mechanics are fun. You'll go pick up a book if all you want is a good story. The idea of the player driving the lore of the game is 'interesting' but not inherently 'fun'. Not to mention that if you did implement such a feature, players would want it two-fold: player-driven lore and mechanics. Which is a bit of a bastard to build, but rare enough that you have a high chance of people being interested in it (with, again, the bare minimum that the player-driven mechanics is fun).

2. You're making the game change genres in different stages of its progress. People who want to play an RTS aren't looking for an RPG, and vice versa. Your promise to the RTS players who get through the first stage is 'you can now play an RPG'. How would that interest them? Perhaps you can advertise a model where you separate the two types of players. The RTS fans will shape the world and when they're finished, the RPG fans can come in and enjoy it. However, this does make gathering enough players harder, and the marketing more confusing.

3. No-one wants to pay any money for the 'limited' version of a game (a single payment/subscription base would work much better), especially if it isn't backed by a respected company or approved developer. There are so many well crafted, complete multiplayer games that are drafted and failing because they didn't get enough player retention (either through bad marketing or bad luck). You need to be sure that your game isn't too niche to fall flat. Unlike other games, your game needs to be populated at its beginning otherwise the rest of it will spiral into oblivion. This is much harder then other types of design models.

I'm not saying you can't make this game, or it won't be successful. All I'm saying is it is a massive time investment, a very niche market, and the only way it will succeed is if you provide quality player-driven mechanics alongside your player-driven lore.

A follow up thought for this is to have your game be time-limited, and have the server start again every say 6-12 months. This would let new people experience the entirety of the game, and let old players implement new ideas and theories in the next iteration. Then you can have a progression system outside of a single 'game', and implement new mechanics over time.

"1.) God Era: Players pay premium cost to become a deity and shape a religious cult"

Is this really a good idea? This is placing a large part of the game behind a pay-wall, last time I checked that is the whole reason people hate microtransactions.

Maybe allow players to be gods at different days of the week, or have a god charge bar that fills as the players follow quests made by other gods.

How will the quests work?

Will the player select a target, condition and amount? Example: Target = Condition= Kill Bears Amount = 5 resulting in quest for killing 5 Bears.

Unless your players are in fact professional programmers with 4-8 years of experience, they can only make boring repetitive quests. Finding a way for players to make quests is one of the most important parts of this game.

"2. Alder Saga"

Placing races behind a paywall is again a bad idea, you will need a way for players to earn these races. It's really going to be a large problem for this game.

You need free players so that the paying players can "god" over them but at the same time free players will instead play other free games that give them more.

"I want to give the community mod ability and direct input into the lore and mythology."

Then you need a way to prevent people from messing around with the system. For example what if there are two conflicting entries to the lore? How do you solve this?

What if one player just types random stuff into it, what makes their lore entry invalid?

4 hours ago, Warchief Swan said:

3. The server will be dedicated to the god player accounts, but there will be engine AI, as the obvious duh.

A AI is: 1+ X = Y; in other words a AI is just a math function that follows conditionsions. There is no known way to make a AI so smart that it could play "god" over a server.

You will need moderators. A programmer costs > $80 000 a month. Servers for this type of game start at $300 each a month. You can expect to pay in total $100 000 a month to keep a server running and to prevent players from breaking it; if this is a small game.

5 hours ago, Warchief Swan said:

5. A lot of money? No one said a lot of money.

You did, the moment the game became multiplayer. To explain, 5 people working in their spare time eats and uses +/- $150 000 worth of resources to stay alive for 2-3 years. This allows them to make a simple 2D indie game or very-very simple 3D game.

Good news is that they can pay that themself if you get them to agree to help you for some kind of late payment agreement.

However, the server you need to test the game is going to cost >$500 a month. Say you only need to work on that part for a year it is 12*$500 = $6000. These numbers are from my last mobile game. 

That means even before you can have a demo for crowdfunding you need the minimum of $6000, to make a indie level multiplayer game. You can scoff at $6000 and say that is nothing, but $500 less from your monthly budget is a huge thing. You also need servers on launch day and a way to pay for extra servers once you start getting a lot of players.

This is only the cost for a mobile multiplayer game. A MMO sized game is going to bankrupt the average person.

5 hours ago, Warchief Swan said:

Low poly can work in some key phases

This tells me you aren't a 3D artist.

5 hours ago, Warchief Swan said:

you should consider that the team may interject missing parameters or remove existing elements

This tells me you are not a programmer.

5 hours ago, Warchief Swan said:

 I play tons of MMORPG's, that's first off. Most suck and seem like a cheap rushed to shelf/steam clone of WoWC.

This tells me it's your very first game you are making.

My advice is first learn a skill so that you can contribute to the game. Programming, art, sound, design all of these help, it takes 3-4 years to learn one of these. Once you have a skill you can form a team, you will find more skilled people if they know you have skills. You can also use these 3-4 years to practice making games.

7 hours ago, Warchief Swan said:

broad equally vague brushstrokes of ignorance. ... You suck at reading comprehension, ...

Warchief, please keep it civil. Insulting your respondents is not a good way to get helpful advice, and can get the thread closed.

14 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

Warchief, please keep it civil. Insulting your respondents is not a good way to get helpful advice, and can get the thread closed.

Sure thing. Is there a button to remove posts from a thread I opened in good faith that I find lacking in sound advice and not helpful in any way.

That would be ideal.

20 hours ago, ShiftyCake said:

You're far too aggressive. You came to this forum to get opinions, so we're giving them. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, but have the courtesy to treat us with respect. To me, there are some fundamental flaws with your idea, but it isn't impossible:

1. What you have described so far is player-driven lore. Not game mechanics, which is where player retention will be. When you open up an MMO, are you there because the story is interesting? No, that's just a bonus (a very rare bonus). You're there because the game mechanics are fun. You'll go pick up a book if all you want is a good story. The idea of the player driving the lore of the game is 'interesting' but not inherently 'fun'. Not to mention that if you did implement such a feature, players would want it two-fold: player-driven lore and mechanics. Which is a bit of a bastard to build, but rare enough that you have a high chance of people being interested in it (with, again, the bare minimum that the player-driven mechanics is fun).

I began mild, aggressive was given back as the recourse of over aggressive opinionation. Opinions are fine, but if they descent to the point of ridicule its better to just move on to a post you can be constructive on.

In who's opinion? In my opinion and several people I have blogged with, it would be very fun and we each mentioned how we hate shallow or non-existent lore. There would need to be a choice mechanic based on a few core basic's that would be wide ranging but of course not infinite, it wouldn't be that hard, just time consuming, and I'm not a corporate entity, so no pressure to please the management or the text length thinking programmer.

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2. You're making the game change genres in different stages of its progress. People who want to play an RTS aren't looking for an RPG, and vice versa. Your promise to the RTS players who get through the first stage is 'you can now play an RPG'. How would that interest them? Perhaps you can advertise a model where you separate the two types of players. The RTS fans will shape the world and when they're finished, the RPG fans can come in and enjoy it. However, this does make gathering enough players harder, and the marketing more confusing.

Funny. I developed the idea on the basis that as an RTS player I'd like RPG in the same setting to broaden the scope of my experience. Why did Skyrim add a Hearth Home DLC? They made a building and management addition to a game that was fine alone but not enough to some players. There is no confusion. I understand you are trying to help me avoid that hypothetical scenario, but I see the idea as coining a new genre and not fitting either of the old descriptions. If that's threatening to categorical standards I simply wouldn't care. The description would apply to the persons who are looking past current genre in game and hoping for a break in trends only the industry has set in stone.

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3. No-one wants to pay any money for the 'limited' version of a game (a single payment/subscription base would work much better), especially if it isn't backed by a respected company or approved developer. There are so many well crafted, complete multiplayer games that are drafted and failing because they didn't get enough player retention (either through bad marketing or bad luck). You need to be sure that your game isn't too niche to fall flat. Unlike other games, your game needs to be populated at its beginning otherwise the rest of it will spiral into oblivion. This is much harder then other types of design models.

The limiter is lifted in the concept. I don't see how you missed that. There will be premium dynamics for the premium player that the free or casual late starter will not get to partake in at all, but nothing is cut off when the mortal phases begin. There is just one stage within another, with a management aspect controlling NPC monster growth, magical or infernal energy distribution, ect.. I'm being so tight lipped because vampiric watchers will slurp up the idea and implement in their own game even as they label it a fail in a forum. To discourage a concept originator or another developer while they work it up as if they were a genius. And does it have to be vastly populated? Or is the main reason the many generic RPG games out fail is because of jaded players who critique a beta to death before it even has time to correct the mechanics or other issues? I'm of a new opinion that people think they have sound opinions but really, they don't know what they want until you hand it to them complete and well crafted.

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I'm not saying you can't make this game, or it won't be successful. All I'm saying is it is a massive time investment, a very niche market, and the only way it will succeed is if you provide quality player-driven mechanics alongside your player-driven lore.

Thank's. I can see that. And tried to illustrate that would be the case in the brief overview I gave in that link.

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A follow up thought for this is to have your game be time-limited, and have the server start again every say 6-12 months. This would let new people experience the entirety of the game, and let old players implement new ideas and theories in the next iteration. Then you can have a progression system outside of a single 'game', and implement new mechanics over time.

Ideal. That's a suggestion we can all live with! And I would go one farther and let premium players have a voice in the literal creation of the world maps. As we focus group the internal players and focus less on any outsider intrusive elements.