PART TWO - MMOPRG input - Endgame

Since the other thread yielded interesting results, Ill ask another question:
What innovative ideas can you come up with for the end game of an MMO?

Usual MMO end games consist of either PvP (now that youve reached the highest level) and raid content. For sure we will have both of those but we're going to take it further.

Out in the wastes there are NPC villages that you can absorb either by helping them with resources, weapons and armor, as well as defending them from attacks or you can be the attacker and take over the village and take its resources and people to fight for you by force. These villages will actually help you fight other player guilds (triggered spawns and such) and npcs. Thats part of the middle game.

The end game comes in as this: once you have amassed a large enough army of wastelanders (be they corporate or outlander -the two factions in the game) you will need their help and numbers to take over the massively large NPC towns in important, server-changing events. (somewhat like the npc castle takeovers in Lin2 but think even bigger)

The idea behind this mechanism is that your guild can create its own history and have an impact on the future. For example, if you roleplay your guild as a group of mutants who through terror have enslaved the people of the wastes and are attempting, finally to take over one of the huge huge corporation cities. Or you are a benevolent band of cyborgs (another race) who have forged a rebellion against thetyrannical outlander government. There are a million ways to play it. Or at least thats the goal.

So... having heard one of my ideas...what MMO endgame are you guys willing to put forth?

Come on...someone has to have one decent idea about what the MMO endgame should be.

Exit? Dojo? Someone? You guys are letting me down and pissing me off.

You need to spice up the thread by mentioning Exitium:

I'm calling you out Exitium, you flip-flop on something or other and you pirate and steal things (THEFT IS MURDER), and you like MMORPGS. Now comment already and do some good fag. He's asking.

Same goes for all the others who know what goes into a good RPG. Think of how smug you can be if it goes wrong and you can say "I TOLD him not to do that!". Go on, you know you'd love it.

If you can have one player group or faction win at some point (taking over the map) then you could make a bit of a show of it, write it into the history and then have another revolution/collapse to reset it a generation or so later, and make what happened in the last games the history of the new game. I liked the SB battle and news reports, they'd be nice as a game is running.

You could name the new NPC towns or players after famous players or factions, or have them talk about them as a bit of the history. It'll make the players feel important to hear about themselves or their faction. It'll also take bugger all effort to write a bit of a text file to mention it I'd imagine.

LMAO. Let's give Exit some time to cool off...by posting in this thread.

Definitely the goal is for one group to eventually take over the server. It should take 12 months to do it though. Im all for server reset...which as you say can be worked into the history ...say by taking over x, y, z they caused another apoc...and then the server resets.
There are TONS of clans that would love to say "we were the first to win the server!"

As far as endgame goes here's anothr reiteration:

a)high lvl raids on top content
b)server domination via citybuilding and seiges
c) taking over small NPC towns with goal of eventually taking over the large ones.

any other suggestions?

Less NPCs. More player vs player. Player owned towns etc... Main problem with MMO's is you end up in this cycle of attacking the NPC "monsters" constantly walking the treadmill until you get to a point where you pvp. If you could do that stuff earlier, it'd be a lot better. I mean, who the fuck wants to spend 4 months playing some retarded game just to level up, never die, never suffer any consequences and then start having fun?

Fez's idea is good too. Set "tournament" periods. IE: The game runs for say 8 months before a winner is declared. They go in the hall of fame and everything is reset for the next round. That way, people can accomplish something. They know they've only got 8 months in which to work - rather than treadmilling for years - and they're more motivated to achieve a goal. Be it richest trader, most kills, whatever.

Yeah, the sense of accomplishment will give the player the 'money shot' feeling s/he wants from the game. With a percievable goal in sight it will be much more interesting and it'd be a positive hook for it, rather than the negative hooks discussed before.

You do need some sort of log/history/scoreboard for bragging rights though. That is a prize in itself.

If you could do good sieges, that would be great. DAoC failed (at least to me) for that level of play.

How about assasintations? Some sort of town/trade/economy penalties when a leader is taken out? Perhaps a "speed run" of a server that is run off of assasination only goals? The clan that killed the leader gets to absorb the remainder of that clan and so on.

I think that there should be some sort of political system in place, and cities that offer actual benefits to the people who decide to become citizens in them. Say that a player can choose to become a citizen of a city, and in doing so he has to pay a small tax from his money or experience (something low, under 5%). In being a citizen he gets some good benefits, like a Hearthstone that binds him to that city, access to auction facilities, and city-related perks that can be bought or trained from the city's NPCs. Different cities offer different perks.

I think that this should be separate from clans, which should probably have their own perks (otherwise whats the point of forming a clan, right?)

Now, about the end-game: PVP.

PVP should be restricted to instanced battlegrounds, so players can't grief each other out in the open. That would be pretty annoying, especially if you aren't in the mood to fight - and a lot of MMORPGs suffer from the problem of player harrassment. Let PVP have its place. There should some mention of 'civilized law' in the game setting, so players can't go around killing each other, and restrict their duels and such to designated battlegrounds, where players meet up and battle in earnest. These battlegrounds should be instanced, and their size should be based on the number of participating players. If 8 people from 2 factions go in to battle, then they will appear in the 8-player arena with a variety of 8-player challenges, like Team versus Team PVP, 8-player CTF (small arena), or what have you. If 100 people go in, then they'll appear in a large scale battleground with 50 players on each side battling. Shorthanded teams should gain a small advantage over the large teams in the form of experience or reward benefits.

There should be different forms of PVP: small-scale arenas, small scale capture the flag, and large scale battlegrounds, where players respawn instantly with no loss of experience. Experience loss is a pain in the ass, but there should be some form of grief, so I'd propose implementing a scoreboard, PVP ranks and a rewards-based PVP system. It shouldn't be based on individual kills, but rather how successful the entire group is, so support characters like priests and bards or what ever equivalent you have of them don't get screwed. Kill experience will be shared throughout the entire group and the proportionate ranks, rewards and such distributed evenly so everyone plays their part correctly. Players who are veterans of many missions will appear on the scoreboard. They will be classified in win/loss ratios rather than kills/deaths.

The PVP should be the endgame, and it shouldn't take long to get to. Most mmorpgs withhold the fun only after you've played the game for months, and that is unsatisfying. Grinding sucks, and it's also unfair to casual gamers. The game shouldn't be about killing rats or getting to level 100. There's better ways to commit players to 'grind', by offering feats, skills, items and other rewards. Those are better timesinks and players dont feel ripped off.

I don't think that the game should be a grinding or levelling treadmill. The level cap should be fairly low (say around 30) and the rest is about gaining new skills which are earned through quests, items, adventuring, and most importantly good PVP. Being good at PVP will mean you get access to more stuff.

Good post Ex.

The game is going to be full pvp anywhere...but with repercussions to cut down on griefing. But dont think your post was a waste, while there will be open PvP and seiging like in ShadowBane, there will also be instanced battlegrounds so that if groups want a true measure of skill they can have just that (some people might say that it would never be used, but there will be rewards for doing these just as you said).

The zerg and 3am raids are always going to be with us...well sort of. First of all I feel that having superior numbers is a valid war tactic. And as far as 3am raids, controls can be put in place so that both sides agree on the raid time.

Definitely the ideas of bringing in battle modes from UT2K4 is a great idea that we want to do.

Going back to the beginning of your post, there will be political systems in place...both in NPC towns and in player-made towns.

More than just dumbed-down guards, the police forces in these towns will stop you to check ID and reference that with a hate list. Of course this will be able to be forged and scammed, but thats part of the fun of the game right? And just because you dont kill NEAR the town, doesnt mean that if you are griefing newbies that you wont get on the list.

As well, I like the idea of city perks and will have to work that in.

While it's just a random idea, but since setting allows for that, and you mentioned UT, how about allowing players to play games INSIDE the game? You know, illusion inside an illusion .
I mean, in the future, there bound to be some kind of VR, right?
This way, the setting can be very realistic, with permadeath, etc, etc - but you can play "VR" variant of this anytime (for a fee), with it's own rules (casual-gamer friendly), stats, skills, rewards.
Of cource, that would be inferiour to REAL advancement - but would allow player to hop to some action at once, provide traning in PK and other areas to abovementioned casual gamers, and just an additional source of fun.
And besides, Fatality and Polosatiy are no less famous (at least, in sertain groups of people) then Maradonna and Schumacher. Why not exploit that?
This way, both 'instant fun' and grind lovers will be happy.

Glad you brought that up Balor...

there will be games inside the game:

1. Gambling - blackjack, poker and roulette will be incorporated into 3d for the world.
you go up to the NPC, join the game and voila! In a pa world, items for barter can be put up as well as cash, the value you get for these will fluxuate based on locality.

Additionally, city-owners may drop these vendors in their towns to create a merchant, arms, gambling type atmosphere. They can set the difficulty and profit loss just like other vendors.

2. Driving - with automobles in the game, not only would you be able to race against your friends, but you could do it vs npc vehilces in a demolition derby type deal or race. You go to the NPC, goin a group of other players and wait for the race or the demolition derby to begin. Prizes will be awarded. Of course there will be quests you can choose based on timed courier missions using your car and other such things, but the players themselves can set the rules.

3. Melee - we are incorporating a huge melee engine into the game - along the lines of WWF wrestling mixed with Def Jam Vendetta. Again these skills can be incorporated into quests, but also will allow players to create a world of pit-fighting and boxing gambling. It fits into the world of a dirty, grimy pa world when you think about it. Imagine mutant pugilists and cyborg death-fighters against little old you. (We are thinking of having 3 schools of skills to choose from: Brawling (good old american fighting), Martial Arts, and Throws/Submissions)

4. Hacking - one of our guys is a network programming guru. I dont use that word lightly. Hes creating a simulated internet that can be integrated into the world as well. go find the free demos for the games BS Hacker or DarkSigns (recognize that name? lol). You find server addresses...scan their ports...run different exploits to get past security. And thats just for starters. With upgradable computer parts and software crafting it will be just as fun to go up against an NPC computer as it will be to hack someone's security in their player city.

Other ideas include darts and pool tables. We've all seen those games in the bargain bin...why not put em to use?

Any more ideas for games inside games?

Pong. Seriously.

Sure. Why not. That would be a fun reward.

If you are going to do that you could stick in all the other simple arcade games, similar to what Anachronox did with it's mini games machine.

who cares

i dont see y u should spend any time at all on this

mmorpgs suxr0z

I guess you are right. DarkSign will cancel it today.

My idea was a constantly advancing world until the people get tech to leave the planet then the server world resets and changes things to make it interesting. But you can have capture-the-flag or more shitty respawning dungeons.

I don't claim to understand much of Rex's post, mechanics never were my strong suit. For less combat oriented players, like myself, be sure to offer a game-world that's ever-changing, huge in scope, with lots of caves and islands and nooks and crannies. I'd pay just to explore something like that. In Star Wars Galaxies, I was bummed as I couldn't explore some of the 'high level planets' without armed guards or grinding till I was 40 years old. That's no fun. I don't think having aggro monsters everywhere really adds anything, it just hinders players like myself, who don't necessarily want to be ubar and just want to explore, collect, and adventure peacefully.

Maybe you could think of specific rewards for exploring some percentage of the game world, or offer 'scavenger hunts', something to make peaceful gameplay rewarding to the player beyond it's inherent satisfaction of curiosity.

Besides that, this may sound silly, but the main thing that's kept me from even considering World of Warcraft is you can only play gigantic muscular Orcs. I mentioned this in your previous thread, but options to alter height/weight are crucial in character creation. You must, must, must allow the player to define themselves visually, this is essential. Other than that, find some way to make all armor types useful. In SWG, every single player (except me) wore the same red composite armor. It was ridiculous and ruined any notion of a legitimate Star Wars atmosphere.

One last thing. I'd like to see a minimally player-driven economy. In SWG, if you wanted to buy a weapon, you had to hunt down 300 different merchant's tents in the middle of nowhere and then compare endless stats. This is caused by the fact that every time an item is crafted, it's quality varies drastically, seemingly without any maximum point. After crafting, a weapon can then be sliced (altered by a smuggler), modded, and so on. So there's quite a lot of factors at work. This is just a pain in the ass and it leaves you with an uncertain feeling, as you can't be sure just how much you have or haven't improved your equipment. Or, as is most often the case, if you've even improved at all.

If you do include a player-driven economy, then perhaps you could make item quality static or at least understandable, so you can be sure of what to look for and not hope you're getting something decent. Also, you could offer NPC vendors for low to mid-range equipment, which would be nice for the people who aren't interested, or don't have the time, to track down master crafters. Of course then you remove a giant time-sink, which may be of more importance to whoever it is you're working for :wink:

Great post Ortch. Here's what Ive been developing.

a) Exploration

Definitely there will be a huge world to explore. Its PA...but its after the holocaust by several hundred years. And we're still not sure if it was nuclear or bio-chemical. So there will be a broad range of climates - mostly wasteland, but also pockets of swamp (the mutants congregate here), forest (very few), snow capped mountains, and ultra-radiated scortched volcanic areas, along with underwater caves. Thats not even to mention that the mutant civs will have a tribal look, the cyborg cities their own look...and of course the human civs will be differing variations of either scraptech or cyberpunk. so there will definitely be a lot to explore.

To take this further...Im trying to find a few mystery writers. I want those that just have the bent to explore to also get hooked on the story/message/drama of the game by playing Sherlock Holmes. I want there to be mysteries...as good as any gripping mystery novel...that people can explore and solve...with rewards inside the game.
In fact, Id love to have NPCs direct players to other players who have advanced down the mystery path to get information from the sleuths in aiding their quest. Of course there are hinderances to this (will they be on, the info could just be on a website) but Im thinking radically here.

2) Character creation

This is of course a major item. City of Heroes has an amazing character creation tool. I played with it for 4 hours the first time I got it....and I want to duplicate that experience here. But to be realistic we have to pare it down a little. So...

9 body types - combinations of short, medium tall and skinny, medium, fat.
depending on time perhaps a 3rd axis of muscularity could be added.

8 female hair types, 8 male hair types, 8 mutant hair types, and 8 cyborg head shapes
Various colors of skin based on starting race.

8 faces per race - 5 different piercings - 20 tattoos

It should be noted that there will be several stylistic looks in the game...
wasteland scraptech and tech-military of course, but also a gothic leather style, a punk-biker kind of look, as well as a religious cultist look which consists of robes and glyphed religious wear. (I dont want the last to take over the world, just be about 10% of what players wear). Im toying with the idea that when pieces of clothing/armor drop or are bought, at the moment they loot it, they can choose which graphic look they want. This way they can look how they want to look but dont have to go back to town and do all the trading and selling just to keep up their look. Its just a thought, but an attempt to let players keep their style their own.

c) Economy

I can definitely feel your pain with player-driven econs. There will be a lot of that in our game, but a balance will be aimed for. First of all, vendors will sell decent weapons of all calibers (pun intended). You wont have sit comparing for 5 days to find one decent weapon only to have a friend run up and make you feel like you have a p o s. Thats not to say that its not a loot-whore game...because as much as Ive tried to deny it...people love getting uber gear. There...Ive admitted it. So weapons and weapon parts will be gotten by adventuring as well.

Now when a guild or merchant places their town, as in Shadowbane, they will be able to drop weapons crafters and vendors. The price, profit, and quality will all be able to be set by the person controlling the npc, again as in SB. Tied into the game is an RTS style resource system. This not only serves as a source of currency for wastelanders to pay for city-building and ammunition, but it also provides another location & reason for pvp. I bring this up because based on the materials you are bringing in, your weapons vendors will be able to craft different things.

Since there is no weapons crafting in the game you're probably scratching your head, right? Well there is weapons modding & repair. Ive come up with an easy to read diagram with over 15 gun parts which will be able to be modified. So if you want to get a better weapon...go adventure...get the parts...and then raise your mod skill or take it to someone who has the skill.

Im hoping that the economy makes everyone scramble...even guilds that have been in the game for a year should still have to make sure they defend their resources to get bigger and badder.

Thoughts, questions, opinions? I want to hear it all.

Well, I'm about to go to bed so I'll just comment on my only real objection. Only eight faces per race? That's a serious bummer. I think even AO has more than that, and I was pretty disappointed by their 15 or so. Shit, I could cook up 100 faces in Photoshop in a week. Try and push this point, character definition is a huge must for a lot of people. If it costs a bit more for the 'Sims 2' style technology, I'd say it's gonna be worth it when you consider that most of the people who play MMOs are young girls who just want to play dress up and hang out with their friends. You should keep that in mind. Though if you're making this game for the niche market (i.e. us) then nevermind all that since I'm about the only guy who's gonna care.

At any rate, I'll try and comment on the rest later.

DarkSign said:

Great post Ortch. Here's what Ive been developing.

a) Exploration

Definitely there will be a huge world to explore. Its PA...but its after the holocaust by several hundred years. And we're still not sure if it was nuclear or bio-chemical. So there will be a broad range of climates - mostly wasteland, but also pockets of swamp (the mutants congregate here), forest (very few), snow capped mountains, and ultra-radiated scortched volcanic areas, along with underwater caves. Thats not even to mention that the mutant civs will have a tribal look, the cyborg cities their own look...and of course the human civs will be differing variations of either scraptech or cyberpunk. so there will definitely be a lot to explore.

Click to expand...

Having a world map that makes sense is important(this may sound obvious but...)

For example, if you have melted earth to the north, a line of snow capped peaks running northeast to southwest near the centre, and pockets of forest & semi-green wasteland to the south around the sea, it's important that NPC types be in line with the location.

Cyborg cities poking out of the mountains, mutants in the nuclear wasteland, pockets of humans in the green belts.

To take this further...Im trying to find a few mystery writers. I want those that just have the bent to explore to also get hooked on the story/message/drama of the game by playing Sherlock Holmes. I want there to be mysteries...as good as any gripping mystery novel...that people can explore and solve...with rewards inside the game.
In fact, Id love to have NPCs direct players to other players who have advanced down the mystery path to get information from the sleuths in aiding their quest. Of course there are hinderances to this (will they be on, the info could just be on a website) but Im thinking radically here.

Click to expand...

Nice idea, but too ambitious.

Having a jigsaw puzzle as to what exactly happened would be nice, that can only be figured out by exploring hidden bases, ruined cities, etc etc would be somewhat easier to implement, with the very odd NPC sometimes pointing out to you a rumour or a clue to another one of these locations, presuming they like you.

8 faces per race - 5 different piercings - 20 tattoos

Click to expand...

This bit is important.

Instead of having 8 faces, have say 6 skin tones, with 5 chins, 5 mouths, 5 nose & 5 brow & foreheads.

Faces are more important than small/medium/brawny bodies.

I can definitely feel your pain with player-driven econs. There will be a lot of that in our game, but a balance will be aimed for. First of all, vendors will sell decent weapons of all calibers (pun intended). You wont have sit comparing for 5 days to find one decent weapon only to have a friend run up and make you feel like you have a p o s. Thats not to say that its not a loot-whore game...because as much as Ive tried to deny it...people love getting uber gear. There...Ive admitted it. So weapons and weapon parts will be gotten by adventuring as well.

Click to expand...

Neocron had a decent system of item creation & stats, which could have been great if MJS wasnt such a money whoring tightfisted fuck *phew*.
Each gun had 4 statistics upon creation, frequency, handling, aiming & damage.
Max was 120%.

You didnt need 120% to cap a gun, depending on your skills, but having a better quality gun meant you needed less in skills to cap it.

Now when a guild or merchant places their town, as in Shadowbane, they will be able to drop weapons crafters and vendors. The price, profit, and quality will all be able to be set by the person controlling the npc, again as in SB. Tied into the game is an RTS style resource system. This not only serves as a source of currency for wastelanders to pay for city-building and ammunition, but it also provides another location & reason for pvp. I bring this up because based on the materials you are bringing in, your weapons vendors will be able to craft different things.

Click to expand...

Have each town tied into several resources "nodes".

For example, a mine, a factory an oil derrick, open pit mine, old trash dump, etc

Each node gives a different bonus to the town its connected to(price,quality,time), and each town has pre-determined resource nodes, so each town is different.

Also make it so each node needs to be taken before the town can, turning one battle into many.

Since there is no weapons crafting in the game you're probably scratching your head, right? Well there is weapons modding & repair. Ive come up with an easy to read diagram with over 15 gun parts which will be able to be modified. So if you want to get a better weapon...go adventure...get the parts...and then raise your mod skill or take it to someone who has the skill.

Click to expand...

Honestly, this seems like removing weapons crafting, to add a slightly different crafting under a different name.

Why not just have say 50 weapons parts, and craft/mod weapons at the same time?
Like:

Pistol Chamber
SMG Chamber
Rifle Chamber
MG Chamber

To these you add:
Magnetic Inverter(adds EMP rounds)
Plasma infusion chamber(adds plasma rounds(and reqs plasma ammo & clip)
Folding stock(adds to accuracy)
Rifle barrel(increased accuracy, range & dmg, decreased rof on rifles)
Assault Rifle Barrel(increased rof, decreased dmg)
Scope(Increased range, only available on weapons with single shot)
Extended clip(increased clip size, decreased accuracy)
And on & on.

dont do anything lasting with a zone event.

there are few things more frustrating as a new player then seeing that everything has been done before, and that you have no chance of making it without joining some large faceless conglomorate of players.

Human Shield said:

My idea was a constantly advancing world until the people get tech to leave the planet then the server world resets and changes things to make it interesting. But you can have capture-the-flag or more shitty respawning dungeons.

Click to expand...

Lets talk about this for a second. Now I had entertained the idea of really going RTS by having each guild required to start at the bottom of a tech tree...slowly advancing forward.

Of course some guilds would advance faster and therefore be able to have better weapons, but wouldnt this make the playing field unequal? wouldnt it highlight the difference between noobs and vets?

Anyone...anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

EDIT: And btw
a) capture the flag can be fun
b) my respawning dungeons wont be shitty
c) ive already said we will have server resets
d) ive been toying with the idea of having the cause of the apoc be (its a secret) that changes the way people look at the game. of course you dont want to change the game on people who liked it the way it was.

DarkSign said:

Human Shield said:

My idea was a constantly advancing world until the people get tech to leave the planet then the server world resets and changes things to make it interesting. But you can have capture-the-flag or more shitty respawning dungeons.

Click to expand...

Lets talk about this for a second. Now I had entertained the idea of really going RTS by having each guild required to start at the bottom of a tech tree...slowly advancing forward.

Click to expand...

It's inevitable, but the moment when a player (a guild) gets access to highest level of the tech tree is both a success and a big damper for player motivation. Knowing there will never ever be anything new is usually the moment when I quit the game.

You can stretch it by offering several trees available to different PC types, so player may want to try another pC to try another tree, but the basic problem still exists.