MMORPG features.

[Martin]

My current project is an MMORPG of sorts, and I had a few questions.

What kind of character advancement system do you like in an RPG (a MMO)?
The obvious choices would be a level based system (as in get this much experience to get more powerful) or a levelless system in which skills advance through use (as in, use your gun and you'll get better at shooting).

What about character classes? Do you like having a large selection of somewhat specialized character classes from which you can choose, or a smaller, more general selection? My personal favourite is Morrowind's system, where you choose areas that you want to specialize in and then have to actually use those skills to improve.

Do you like character races? A lot, a few, just one?

For those of you that play MMORPG's, what are your thoughts on grouping? How large a group do you like to run with?

Finally, what other non combat features of an RPG (MMO or otherwise) that you've played have really stood out?

Thanks in advance.

[Tony]

well I like how World of Warcraft has combined both of those leveling systems. You get experience and you level your character.. at each level you get bonus to your stats such as strength and vitality.

though the bonus for a weapon class or profession is achieved with practice. So if I mine minerals and Engineer devices, those skill increase with practice.

I'd prefer a customazation of characters to fit my original ideas.. though not to a point where it's very generic do-whatever. I guess some story for each class/race/etc should still be there.

Grouping.. I think that 4~5 would make a pretty kick-ass group. In WoW raid groups of 50+ could be formed... interestingly enough there are actually quests where this is required.

[brenn]

Instead of choosing classes, and the skills associated with, why not choose the class based on the skillsets accumulated by the character? For instance, the more a character uses say, magic skills, the greater chance that he will become a magician class character (as opposed to choosing the class first, and then having the skills in conjunction). The class could be chosen when the skill and/or player reaches a certain level, etc.

Having levels would be the simplest way to implement advancement, either with general exp points or skill points. If you could have some original way, it could work out better and bring more originality into your MUD. (You're making a MUD, right?)

[Justin_]

If you trust yourself Martin, the best way to make a game that people will love is to make a game exactly how YOU would want it. Make it how you would have it in your dreams and your garanteed to get a following :p

[Tony]

Justin_'s right, otherwise you'll just end up with another generic RPG clone.

Besides, I don't think most of the above ideas translate into MUD well.

[Martin]

What I was thinking about for the class system was to allow characters to choose major and minor skills from a big list of skills (a la Morrowind). These skills would advance faster than other skills and have a higher maximum. To keep things simple, it'd offer pre-made packages for commonly used archetypes (for example, there'd be a Soldier archetype with the appropriate specializations) but customization would be there for those who want it.

My original idea was to create a more hardcore, roleplaying your character enforced game but I'm not sure how well that'd work. So right now I'm collecting ideas.

Personally, I've never been a fan of having different races in a game because it seems to me that they tend to encourage power gaming (why play an elf warrior when you can play a troll warrior?). WoW has character classes being race specific though, don't they?

[Martin]

Tony wrote:

Justin_'s right, otherwise you'll just end up with another generic RPG clone.

Besides, I don't think most of the above ideas translate into MUD well.

You'd be suprised at how few things from graphical games doesn't work well with a MUD. For the most part, it's just a difference of graphical mediums. Everquest, for example, got accused of stealing code from the DIKU MUD codebase (although it turned out that they didn't). A MUD vs. a graphical MMORPG is like a unix terminal vs. a GUI. You aren't really limited by a well designed GUI, but in the right hands a terminal can be just as powerful (and often more powerful).

[Justin_]

i'm confused. What is MUD and MMORPG?

[Martin]

MMORPG is Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Like World of Warcraft, Everquest, Anarchy Online, etc.

MUD means Multi User (Dungeon|Domain|Dimension|D.*). The predecessors to the current big graphical MMORPG's, a MUD is a text based massively multiplayer game, played through telnet. Check out http://www.topmudsites.com/

EDIT: And DIKU is just the name of a MUD codebase that is widely used.

[codemage]

I prefer Morrowind's system of skills and levelling to any other game I've played.

I like having lots of races, but that's more in graphical games where the variety makes things more visually appealing.

I like smaller groups for questing (4-8), and much bigger groups for PvPing (10-100).

I also like Brenn's idea of classes. I don't like being pigeonholed into a narrow preset; I'd rather be able to test out different skills, and dynamically find what's right for me. I also think there's benefit to being able to change your class after you've "picked" one.

[md]

Skill based on use. The more you use a particular skill the better you become at it. That way you don't have the narrow-ness of classes, but you can't do everything either. Also, if you don't use a particular skill for a while you should become less proficient at it, just as in real life you can forget how to do things.

[rizzix]

haha you guys need to play www.silkroadonline.net (more or less quite similar to what is mentioned here.. with an exception that it's totally free to play!)

+ no classes, but many customizable characters to choose from
+ you are free to distribute your skill points over any thing you wish, but it is wise to focus them on one or two masteries only.

3 jobs, that are sort of interdependent:

Anyone can be a Thief, a Merchant and a Warrior. Yes you can be all three. But there's a 10 min cool down time before you can equip your self with a another job item.

If you gain Thief exp, you loose Merchant exp.

All job items can be upgraded.

If a Thief gains exp then he gets stronger against higher level Merchants.

If a Merchant gains exp, well, he can can gain more gold / trade mission.

I'm not quite sure about a Warrior yet. =/ But basically a warrior is supposed to kill Thieves, and I believe he's awarded if he captures a Wanted.

A Thief becomes a wanted once he has some x amount of exp.

[Martin]

Rizzix - site's dead. Is that game a MUD or just one of those PHP browser based games?

Cornflake - The system that I think I'm going to use is like Morrowind's, with what you said - the player's skills are all constantly atrophying, although at a much slower rate than they learn them at, as well as based upon the rate of learning other things. For example, a player who spends his time shooting rifles isn't going to forget how to use a pistol. Similarly, someone who learns how to use some healing magic (well, not magic... I'll post an explanation of the magic system on antithesis tonight) but then never uses it or any other magic will forget it fairly quickly. Also, skills forgotten this way will regain quicker - it's easier to relearn something than learn something new.

I think the biggest challenge will be to keep people from becomming specialized in a lot of things. Everybody is going to learn a bit of healing magic, but a character who focuses on healing magic should be compotent enough that they are still useful to a group of said people, so I think I'm going to go with a level based skill maximum - individual skill maximums as well as total skill points will be based on the player's level.

Speaking of which, I think a level based system is the best way to go. One of the problems with a levelless system is that it would be much more difficult to determine who could group with who. Without restrictions, this would lead to people getting the best equipment almost right away (in the form of it being given to them by other players). I think that I'm going to go with a remort system though - after the player reaches a certain level, they are given the option of "remorting" their character, giving them an extended choice of races as well as some other bonuses (such as to stats) while resetting their level to 1 and skills to their defaults. This would keep certain races proportionally rare (I think human will be the only starting race available) and also keep the game contained - so there are always people in your level range to group with.

[rizzix]

hmm its a 3D MMORPG (geez man i know what an mmorpg is). -- you know like WoW??? yea like that!

And yea, that site is tweaked to only be viewed on windows. Lame? yea. But good game.

[md]

since skills are learned faster then forgotten you could always calculate a characters level by averaging their skills, or a similar method. You could then use the level for things like groups or equipment or whatever but still retain the basic level-less nature.