Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

So basically...we want another world akin to World of Warcraft then?

I wasn"t suggesting that Medieval + Steampunk + Fantasy = Great Game, but that a melding of subgenres can give a game genre some new flair. Back when FF6 came out, I hadn"t really played many (if any) RPGs that melded such a variety of tastes into one title, and in such a way that you could comprehend and believe the existence of such a place. That"s why FF6 sticks out in my mind as a good example of an MMO world template.

Even if a Medieval-Steampunk-Fantasy-MMO were on the horizon, the fact that it isn"t completely original doesn"t mean it will be boring and uninteresting. Hell, EQ was a bit of a Medieval-Steampunk-Fantasy-MMO, but WoW still ended up beating the pants off of it both in terms of commercial and entertainment value. If we"re to be intent on nay-saying stuff that"s been done before, though, let"s just say "Simpsons did it!" and move on to another topic entirely; it"s a bit late to have any relevance to 38 Studio"s project in any case.

Mhm, I mean, an MMO based on Fantastica from The Neverending Story would fall under a lot of the fantasy genre specifications, but the world is completely different.

Vatoreus said:

So basically...we want another world akin to World of Warcraft then?

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Seriously, no, please.

No, fuck all that.

Cyberpunk world + fantasy + lesser medieval elements = Shadowrun = yes please.

The SR universe would make a fortune if it had competent people translating it to a mmo.

Flight said:

The mana system has become so staid, it would be refreshing to see a workable alternative.

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Other systems are fine, but to say that the mana system is old and boring is just because you"ve dealt with it for an extended period of time.

It"s just a tried and true control mechanism.

Everyone can go try to bring Fury Online back if you want. No mana and everything is instant cast. It played like shit.

I"ve played memorization system, spell slot systems, mana allocation systems, gem/mana systems (this one was interesting). They"re all basically the same. They limit you different ways from casting non stop.

WAR plays nice without a mana system, you can"t spam non stop but you only need 10ish second to refill your whole action points bar, and it works in combat. The big issue with mana isn"t really the ressource itself, it"s how it is used most of the time. Mana ends up being a finite ressource with an extremely slow regen which means once it"s depleted, you"re by all means completely fucked. If they made a non gay system and called it mana I don"t think anyone would care, but usually mana is literally one bar, with a few options to refill that bar linked to cooldowns and sometimes consumables which makes it even worse.

It is an especially bad concept for PvP because it prevents mana using classes to keep going as long as they"re alive, which in turn usually give them "unfair" advantages in form of higher burst and such, which imo is terrible design. The same issues in PvE though.

Yeah, I liked the AP system in WAR. I think all classes should have a replenishing resource pool to work with. Energy/Rage/Runic Power are all much more fun than mana in WoW. In fact, the one time I had a lot of fun on a mana using class was 3.0 when my Ret Paladin could replenish huge amounts of mana with JotW. It just felt cool to see mana working like that, even if it was maybe admittedly a little too good at the time.

I"m playing around with a design for an arcane caster right now where you do use Mana but it"s a bit more like Runic Power/JotW. Still tweaking it, but basically right now the caster starts with full mana and spells deplete it like normal, but completing certain combo chains of spells results in a "mana surge" and you get a big boost of mana back, otherwise it regenerates quite slowly in combat. The idea is that you might play more carefully using a lot of combos in a mana-intensive situation, or alternatively you could just go full burn at points even though it"d completely drain your mana.

I"d love to see a quality low/hard fantasy game world. I know this has been repeated ad nauseam, but a world akin toA Song of Ice and Fireand/orThe Malazan Book of the Fallenwould be amazing.

Speaking of the Malazan series, my biggest complaint about nearly every MMO is the complete lack of depth in the mechanics, especially the magic systems. There"s very little to no explanation of why or how people can use magic, it"s just there. Obviously, the actual use mechanic of the systems need to be user friendly and easy to use, but give them some complexity beneath the surface. Give the magic system synergies and antagonisms, make the caster feel as if they are funneling a power greater than themselves rather than just throwing out a one-off cantrip. Magic is supposed to be the most powerful things in these game universes, yet it"s always treated like it"s nothing more than just a fighting move or snap of the fingers.

I hope you"re making a world set in the Rainbow Brite universe, personally. That would be outstanding.

James said:

I hope you"re making a world set in the Rainbow Brite universe, personally. That would be outstanding.

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Fuck that shit, get on the Smurfs IP for an MMO immediately.

Go-Bots MMO.

I love Zehn"s posts, but the game he wants he already hated

ToeMissile said:

Care Bears FTW

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Already exists I heard, it"s called WoW.

Vatoreus said:

So basically...we want another world akin to World of Warcraft then?

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No gunpowder in my MMORPG please.

I would rather have swords, magic, bows and arrows, dragons, ogres, and other fantasy stuff.

I dont want to see robots, space aliens, missles, airplanes, air balloons, guns, cannons or anything like that.

I would also rather do away with flying mounts while we are on the topic, would rather see a world where travel becomes more meaningful again, and WOW definately did away with meaningful travel. I do think there can be some portals in the world that allow for travel between major cities with the completion of a quest done in each city (so that you have to travel to that city at least once on foot before you can port there). But I would like to see some of the old feeling of running from the portal in the Dreadlands to the city of Cabilis again. Fast horses are ok, but flying either on the programmed path griffons or the controlled flying mounts does not do much for me in WOW and makes the world feel insignificant compared to what EQ"s world felt like. Northrend to me is a collection of 20 points on a map I land on, not a continuous piece of land.

Damn it would be nice to have a release of a decent MMO already.

It"s a damn shame that WoW could have been so much more.

I"d love to see a quality low/hard fantasy game world. I know this has been repeated ad nauseam, but a world akin to A Song of Ice and Fire and/or The Malazan Book of the Fallen would be amazing.

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Not really relevant, but I don"t think Malazan really qualifies as "low fantasy". I only read half a book, but from memory they had gods, powerful wizards and all sorts of strange creatures out the ass.

I think an anachronistic setting with sci-fi/steampunk elements would be great for an MMO. Kind of like some of the FF games, but less asian. Blended in with China Mieville"s novels and a bit of Planescape: Torment.

WoW has that to an extent, but it"s very limited, and often feels very out of place in an otherwise high fantasy setting. The gnomish stuff worked at first, but they"ve just kept getting more and more ridiculous and it"s kind of tacky now. Especially once you get into the "dimensional ships" from BC and so forth (which conceptually could have worked, I think, but the way they implemented it into the lore, and aesthetically, was very akward).

I"d also love to see a dark, futuristic fantasy type setting. Think Starcraft, or WH40k but without the "elves and orcs but they"re in spaceships l0l". Something like the bastard child of star wars and some dark, dirty and gritty cyberpunk type setting.

Azrayne said:

I"d also love to see a dark, futuristic fantasy type setting. Think Starcraft, or WH40k but without the "elves and orcs but they"re in spaceships l0l". Something like the bastard child of star wars and some dark, dirty and gritty cyberpunk type setting.

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Well starcraft doesn"t have elves or orcs, it"s really a very straight SF world with like, space marines as usual, and 2 other major races, one technically advanced on the verge of extinction(ok that sounds like elves, but damn tons of SF settings have those) and the non technologic insectoid race(also very common in SF settings). WAR40K while it does have "orcs and elves" is pretty damn gritty and I really like the universe, what is left of humanity has been pushed into such extremes it"s rather interesting.

What I like about those(at least I believe SC is similar but not sure) is while it"s futuristic stuff, it"s a very dark future, nothing like "oh lookies we got spaceships we own the universe" that"s a bit too common otherwise. It"s also total war, not a political war for economic domination but pure survival war, most races only thrive to survive a bit more after centuries of war, and annihilate the others to do so. Star Wars in that regard, I wasn"t a big fan of, at least what I know of it(so mostly the movies).

Anyway, tons of ways to make something original, or fun, or both. Won"t please everyone, unless you do high fantasy which mostly please everyone, but anything well done could work I guess.

P.S.: I knew I"d get a negative for my wow comment. It was a joke, but if I had a penny everytime someone said wow was a carebear game...