Persistent World Rountable: The Role Playing Experience...

#21

Quote:Perhaps an MMOG focused on Roleplaying should be preceded by a single-player campaign.

Hmm, now that's an interesting idea. Have a required "Single Player" portion of a game that the player needs to complete before they can get into the real game.

#22 Hmmmmmmm, could do it that way, having a single player campaign unlock the MMO portion. Or you could follow the "Might & Magic" model that was going on the last few iterations of that RPG. They would release "Might & Magic x", then release "Heroes of Might & Magic y" which would incorporate elements and background from the preceeding "Might & Magic" title, then release "Might & Magic z", which incorporated elements and background from the preceeding "Heroes" title, and so on. That would create greater amounts of background, and increase the "buy-in" for the player because their actions in one title have played some part in the events surrounding the subsequent titles.

One potential downside to this, however, is that you might effectively run into "immortal" heroes, player characters who have tied themselves so tightly into the world that they become immune to the passage of time, that they're "always" there. After all, having Bob the Barbarian still running around and smacking people around with a club after four game centuries is just a wee bit ridiculous without some REALLY good explanations.

#23 Well, you could just reward those that have gone through the single player game with either an item or have them start off at say Level 10 instead of 1...

#24 To me I think having good content brings on roleplaying. Someone mentioned Morrowing above, if you could develop a story and a history like that for an MMO I would be interested. The history of the world went so deep, there was unanswered questions, ruins to explore, everything. I spent most of the time in that game trying to find out what happend to the Dwarves.

The thing with pen and paper games is there can be anything you want and go on forever, but with recent MMORPG's, there is a few buildings in each town that are just shops, aload of mobs, and machines to craft items, and none of that stuff really lets your imagination run wild...

..I want huge creatures wandering the landscape that can kill a man in one hit, so that i crap myself and try using some skill and intelligence to win against it rather than clicking on my latest most powerful spell that i have used for the past 100 fights...

..Or be able to explore and discover new things in the world, new creatures, new plants or new civilizations perhaps, and grow older and eventually kick the bucket. For me those sorts of things then lead me to go into another person and act differently and think differently, and get out of the ordinary world.

#25 What about risk? Yes, the dreaded Perma-Death idea.

Just say that the MMORPG has hidden stats, large list of skills, encouraged/enforced IC (in-character) roleplaying, distance based chat(whisper, talk, shout), ALOT of interesting world/culture background, no "character classes", player names are displayed only when you "set" the name (otherwise "Stranger" is displayed), filtered names, etc.

You have been playing the game for 8 months and you now consider your a master blacksmith with a nice little side skill set in carpentry and armoursmithing. What is your sense of accomplishment if anyone else can achieve this if they just play for 8 months? It might take them a little longer or they might achieve the same abilities a little sooner but they will most likely end up just like you because ... they are immortal.

There has to be some sort of risk just like in any real paper&dice RPG. Your character should not only be able to die or be permanently disabled if he does something stupid, but he should also be able to say that he survived a 2 day ordeal lost in a gloomy swamp being hunted by a character that he stole an expensive weapon from. What fun is being a thief if you dont get the adrenalin rush from escaping with your life and the loot? What fun is it to just run to the next town to purchase a "plan" to create a level 6 sword? Alot of what you can do as a character is role-playing if there is risk and rewards. Losing some "unseen experience" and some money is not risk ... it is just annoying.

Check out the project I am working on, it has all that.

#26 Our team is developing a 'Multiplayer' Role Playing Game (orginally a MMO). We backed out of the MMO design to support a much smaller client base of 128 players per server. We made this decision based on our goal to create an experience with a even blend of Leveling Up, Role Play, Questing, PvP (and complexity, budget, etc)

How do we intend to acheive this? We have created 4 'Character' roles in which players are awarded Character Points(CP) which can be applied to Skills, Magic and Weapons, Gold and Accessories by acting out roles. The roles: Character, Game Master, Monster (fiend), and Actor (NPC role). Essentially, a 'single player story' in which 8 party members, 116 monsters and actors, 4 GMs can play together.

GMs are responsible for creating both online and offline stories (our team provides a default story). They populate the online game world with monsters, actors, treasures, traps, and events. They can either create mission->quest->story realtime or prepackage missions->quests->stories for download and play.

GM offline story (optional) can effect the party's or party member online stats and missions when the party is not online. This feature was influenced by many online strategy games such as: Utopia and Thardferr.

Players can quest solo or host a quest as party leader. By completing quest and defeating monsters Players can Level Up their character attributes, skills, magic, weapons, and accessories.

Actors are NPC roles. NPCs provide infomation and vending. The GM is responsible for the dialog and 'persona' of Actors. Players who take on these roles earn CP. We anticipate these roles to be the most tedious, repetitive, and boring, thus, CP awards will be above average. We desire to make the Actor Roles more interactive then dialog alone. For example, Actor Queen could have the option to 'Order The Guards' on the "Hey Queenie, nice jugs!" response. Currently, a moderation and voting system is being planned to 'grade' actors - we are open to other suggestions.

Monsters are the fiends of the game world in which Party members engage FPS/3PS combat. The role of the monster is simple, damage or KO the Party. Players can play these roles allowing for PvP. Players earn CP, 'monster' skills and magic, and unlock new and more powerful monsters to play with progression.

Ultimately, our goal is to provide an Role Playing and Game Playing experience with depth and human intellect (HI).

#27 Being an evil GM myself, I completely agree that perma-death is one of the best ways to actually make people play with some brains. I don't see how you could make it work well on an MMORPG though. A lot of people will avoid the game just because they are afraid of putting too much time into a PC only to lose them.

Don't forget, in a pen and paper RPG there's a GM there for the famous "fudge factor" if something just doesn't seem right. In a system that is automated like an online game there's no wiggle room for anything like that, you die, you die. Not to mention how much grief you would have to deal with people saying "I lagged into those mobs, I want my PC back!!!"

For the most part games have leaned towards the "penalize" direction when you lose a PC. Not sure there really is a better way. But I agree, without perma-death people just won't play their character realistically...

#28 *gives Meatball the secret "evil GM" handshake*

Chris has brought up a good point about the GM's ability to cheat (for good or ill) in order to keep things moving. The sort of judgement call that a talented GM can and will make, whether's he's feeling merciful or just wants to mess with their heads, cannot easily be programmed (if at all) into a computer. I suppose that you could add a "morale" subroutine that effectively flips a coin every few attacks to see if a particular monster stays or runs when getting into a fight with a player. Or a "persuasion" subroutine that again flips a coin every time a player tries talking to an NPC, mimicking the indecision process when dealing with unknown people.

As far as the whole idea of death and dying, strangely enough, we could take a page from a totally unrelated game genre, the FPS. My particular example is Unreal Tournament 2004, and more specifically in the "Onslaught" maps. The basic situation breaks down like this: players who charge ahead blindly and walk stupidly into the line of fire get slaughtered repeatedly and have incredibly low scores, players who stay behind to cover power nodes and the player base stay alive but don't get very high scores (unless the match drags on a LONG time and base defense takes a while to crack), players who go out and capture objectives and harrass the enemy (running over the same guy five or six times from the same vehicle could be called "harrassment" in the purely military sense) may get killed often but they usually end up with the highest scores. While this is fine for an action-heavy FPS, in RPGs it may not seem germaine, not without some sort of adjustment to fit the genre.

One way that perma-death could be implemented without the player getting totally bent out of shape would be the idea of a character "soul", that the stats, skills, and experience (minus an appropriate penalty for dying) carry over into a new incarnation of the character. So, if Bob (known in his current incarnation as "Bob") goes and gets himself killed, he is reincarnated as "Fred" in a new land with a new background and new opportunities for adventure.

Another way might be the idea of a bloodline, that a player starts off with three or four members of a family tree. The player then has to make sure that at least a couple of those individuals remain alive and have children, thus extending the family tree. While there may be subtle differences between any two given individuals in a family branch, it would offer players an added element of strategic planning, who to marry, how many kids to have, which ones are expendable, that sort of thing.

#29 How about instead of reincarnating as a new guy, you could have temples set up around the world, which rescue souls, according to the players persausion in the game, so if one guy was an evil, snake eater, he would reincarnate at the evil snake eater temple and so on, but if the player just went around killing everything and just messing and never fitting into a group then he would find it harder if not impossible to respawn. So the more you roleplay then the better your chance of actually lasting in the game.

#30

Quote:One way that perma-death could be implemented without the player getting totally bent out of shape would be the idea of a character "soul", that the stats, skills, and experience (minus an appropriate penalty for dying) carry over into a new incarnation of the character.

Something like this might not be bad, but you could simply add a roman numeral to the end of the name to almost give a status symbol to those that haven't died. Say there's two Level 100 PC's out there and one is Bernie II, while the other is Beeker 5,483 who do you think is the better player? :)

#31 Yes, but that presupposes that there are few enough players for everyone to be able to get the name they want without needing to resort to having a number at the end anyway.

I like Frankie's idea of having real people playing the roles of what would normally be NPCs. However, I would say that the Queen would be better as an automated NPC, as the average PC wouldn't get much of a a chance to converse with her in any case.

The Captain of the Guard could be the human controlled character, as in the scenario mentioned he would be the one to restore order (by dragging the offensive character away, slicing off his/her head or whatever).

It would also be a more interesting character for most people to roleplay, as a Queen doesn't usually get to do anything exciting for herself. Being surrounded by precious jewels and exotic foods doesn't hold much interest if they're all made of pixels. ;)

#32 Axel, I like that bloodline idea. It gave me an idea for a strategy game. I should go jot that down while I still remember it...

#33 Man, there are a lot of good ideas here, but I gotta say, to get most of this good stuff into a game would be a...

MMPUNM

Massive Multi-Programmer Uber NightMare


I'm assuming by role playing you guys are refering to the uniqueness of playing Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, or AfterMath, that type of stuff? If so, then it just seems that a true(or really really good) RPG would be entirely to massive for the average team(especially indie's) to take on, and to expensive for a major company to risk.

Trying to simulate real life in video games has always been a balancing act. Look how hard you have to work to make a really great and realistic racing game for example. Even after pretty much shutting out everything about our world except the racing aspect of it, you end up with a ton of work that needs to be done just to simulate the limited scope of this one activity.


Imagine just trying to simulate all the things that happen to you in just one day. Then try to imagine how you are going to fill weeks or even months of a players life with new and fun or interesting stuff. Boggles the mind.


Now here is an interesting idea from Stephen Kenny

Quote:The abiltity to affect the world you are in is allways a big bonus, esp in a persistent world, imagine walking with new group and saying "I did that!"

While this may sound unfeasible at first because the prospects of hundreds or even thousands of people altering your world is just asking for trouble, but if the idea were refined a little, you could move towards a stratagy such as this. Example: Instead of allowing the world to be altered, you might have alterable sections that just need the first person that discovers them to complete or conquer some tasks to achieve a world alteration that has been prepared in advance, then you could give credit to the play in a number of ways such as praise on a website that is tied into the game or to name the new alteration after that player. What I mean is, say a guy figures out a way to knock some rocks off a mountain causing a landslide that blocks a stream and creates a lake, you could name the lake after the player that created it and everyone would then have an altered world that the person could attribute to his ingenuity or mistake, lol.

Even those types of situations could still be a coding nightmare though. However, nothing is a nightmare to someone who enjoys challenges like these, so I certainly wouldn't discourage it.

#34

Quote:If so, then it just seems that a true(or really really good) RPG would be entirely to massive for the average team(especially indie's) to take on, and to expensive for a major company to risk.

I don't know G. I've seen some incredible roleplaying on muds/mushes where it was an all volunteer team that built it from the ground up. Granted a 3D RPG is a different animal, but TGE does a lot of that work for you.

I really think if players are given the tools they need and motivation to RP, they will.

#35 @Gonzo: I don't think that would be as *huge* of a coding nightmare as most think(yet it would still be a nightmare). A few things to help along with that idea that come to mind are that maybe some changes are undone by time(ie, if you dig a small hole, then after time the server morphs the terrain back to it's original shape, little by little, or after a heavy rain, etc). Also, since materials are different, you can specify(via masks, which can be implemented as greyscale or otherwise) the amount of "modifiability" a certain area or material(dirt, rock, etc) has, as well as it's tendency to revert to it's original form. Rock would be a more or less permanent change(taking a lot more power to cause the change), while dirt takes less work to change, but rain and wind can undo it just as easily. Also, this allows you to set areas of the game as "protected" from modification.

@Stephen: A lot of MMO's do this, though not in conjunction with "dying". In Anarchy Online, you have to save your cell structure to save all the xp you have at that time, and you lose everything you don't save. In AC2, there were bindstones. I think that if you're going to have persistent death, the "next guy" probably shouldn't start off from the spot the previous character did, unless they are in the same area. Though, giving a bonus or percentage of the dead character's skills/loot to the next character is a very good idea. If you make it impossible to respawn and play, that customer is probably going to cancel his account.

@Kevin: You're so very right, and even though I'm not doing the Perma-death feature as fully as you are, it's great to see others putting it into the game at all. Can't wait to see Adellion launch =)

@Frankie: Nice concept. Kinda reminds me of those mystery dinner things that people can go to(sort of like Clue). I'd been thinking of a game service like that, where you can buy a "ticket" to a "show" and choose a character to play. You're given some background info you need for your character, and then everyone acts it out and has a good time.

@Daniel: You're exactly right! There needs to be a deeper level of "knowledge" in the world, where you can keep finding things out and not just worry about the next mob or level. Histories, lore, ruins, and things that can actually be "studied" really makes the game. In PnP RPG's, a GM can make up the lore as he goes, but it's extremely hard to write that kind of "storyteller" system. Actually, it borders on impossible, but I still think it's on this side of the fence ;)

#36 I have read all of the posts and there are some very good ideas. How about a way to keep people in the role playing mode is to allow them to give out quests and such.

For example in SW:G they have mission terminals.

Lets say your a chef looking for insect meat. Instead of using websites or trying to find hunters you make a mission and give the terminal credits. Someone takes the mission and delivers the meat.

That would be roleplaying and would give people a uniqueness instead of doing the dev missions.

I have always wanted to do this and if implemented right it would be very fun.

Another example would be sonandso is wanting a rare item from the mean ogre but alas he is just a wizard and the ogre is to powerful for him. So he goes to his local pub and posts a reward for the person that brings him the item.

This would be role playing and would allow people to get involved in the game because of the human factor.

#37 @Eric: Good idea. Better than using a "terminal" or "posting" the idea would be a mechanism where the wizard can just "announce" the idea to a few people. They would get a notification asking if they accepted the quest or not, and then they could choose. Same as a terminal or posting it(and those are still very valid ways of getting missions), but in this way the wizard can give out a quest in the middle of the woods, through word of mouth. And who can resist going on a spur-of-the-moment quest in the middle of the woods for a wizard? ;)

That idea of player-made quests can go a long way in boosting the amount of roleplay in a game, I believe. However, there's a big problem of how to get as much flexibility and power into such a system without all the problems(well, there will be problems anyway, but how to minimize them). I had looked into a sort-of-GM system in the early design docs for my game, and I wound up putting it on the back-burner because there's just too much I need to get up and running right now, but along the lines of what Eric has said, it allows people to create missions. There were a few guidelines that I wrote on how it could be done, and these might do someone some good to those looking to implement this kind of system:

1) The game should check the mission and notify the GM as to whether it is unfairly balanced(the GM can ignore this warning).

2) The GM should have the ability to script the npc's and mob's in the mission.

3) All mission assets should be off-limits to all but the party on that mission. Because this would be very hard to do outdoors(unless you set aside a duplicate zone just for that party-which is completely possible), you would do this indoors, and have the party zone into the dungeon. Works like that either way...

4) GM's should not enter the playfield or communicate with the party. The reasoning I have behind this is that this can open up griefing or other problems, and it is more immersive if the one who made the mission isn't participating in it. Someone can do better than this I'm sure.

5) The tools should be in-game. That's a no-brainer I think.

Not much to it really, it's all in it's basic form. The scripting piece is nice, though there would have to be a mechanism to get the .cs files into .dso form. Probably a mission-file submission form where the player selects all the files that are needed for the npc's and mob's and uploads them for later download to the players' pc's in .dso form. Maybe a "mission sandbox" feature for the GM to test the mission offline? Now that would rock :)

To make a long story short, a feature like this, if done right, can encourage roleplay in the playerbase. Even implementing fractional versions of this would be a benefit.

#38 @Ted: I think you and I are on the same track but have a bit of difference. Let me explain why with your numbers.

1) Why would the game check the mission. It wouldn't know if the mission is unbalanced because the players are ultimately responsible for accepting the mission. For example if a lvl 1 player decides to take on a dragon to get a rare gem for the jeweller without asking around then he deserves to die.

2) I like this idea but feel that it would open up the system way to much. Not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

3) I like this idea but would that take away from the feel of being part of a persistant world?

4) Totally agree here. The person that makes the mission will not want to come along. Otherwise he would of just done the mission himself.

5) Hmm I would like to say yeah that would be a no brainer however someone may want to really roleplay it and would rather write stuff up and then import it. Maybe an import feature along with ingame.

Unfortunately it all this will not matter for my personal project I am going to be working on as it is my first and I will not tackle a MMO for my first project. Though I am always willing to give my opinion when I see something of interest.

#39 I dont know I cant really see any problems you could have with player made missions, you could simply have a notice board in the local taverns, which the players could simply just write a note sayin the quest and reward...

...10 dragon scales needed for new armour, more than adequte rewards, for more information find me at the Dwarven Amoury in blah blah...

one idea i had for death was when you die you can still walk amongst the living but you cant be seen or heard, except by the other dead, and you can either reincarnate yourself, haunt a few people that annoy you or try and communicate with a necromancer or someone who could revive you. Also if you thought you had an unfair death, like being killed by an idiot player who thinks its funny to go round killing people for a laugh, then you could go and appeal to the 'court', who could be devs or npc's that can decide whether you have had an unfair death, or you could appeal by email :p kind of a random idea!

#40 One idea I always had for death was to give a player a chance to do a trial to come back from dying. Basically it would work this way.

Player was killed by something. A window pops up asking if you would like to try and complete a trial to come back from death. If player chooses yes they are warped to a zone with all there gear and experience were you have X amount of time to make it to a spot that would warp them back into there body with all the experience though wounded. An out of body experience persay.

If they didn't complete the trial in time or declined the trial then it would place them at the closest hospitality place(be it a hospital, hotel, cottage, etc...) wounded and 10% experience loss.

I am sure you would have whiners but the trial wouldn't take to long to complete (3mins) and it would give them a chance to come back with no penalty besides wounded.