What does your ideal modern MMO be like?

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Urlithani

Vyemm Raider
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1. Money is not a primary concern (cap development budget at $350 million)
2. Assume that Pantheon is your ideal modern MMO (because it is), so what other MMO would you make?

edit: wow I butchered the title. Nice job, self.
 
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Flobee

Vyemm Raider
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I've been kicking around an MMO idea for years. Barebones concept:

1. World is a wilderness at server opening, think a giant island w/ monsters and no population
2. Players arrive at a randomized spawnpoint somewhere on the coast of island. Loose factions created depending on spawn location
3. Players can gather/craft minecraft style(ish)
4. Loose factions work together to create beach-head civilation. NPC's work invasion style (ala RIFT) to attack spawn locations
5. Over time players inevitably gain control of the island, begin to build and create infrastructure
6. Next phase of server is conflict between factions (city-state esque entities as this point)
7. Server eventually (maybe) resets as conflict escalates and a winner begins to emerge

Basically think a Civ game extrapolated and adapted for an MMO space. Dunno if it would be fun/possible but always seemed like a cool idea to me.

EDIT: Bonus cool points if it is designed in such a way that a faction can actually fail and lose to NPCs. Create stakes
 
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Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Something different than every MMO made post-WoW.

A few things I'd like to see:
- A larger world than the usual tiny/I'll cross the entire planet in 30mn world. Possibly, large enough to cram 200k simultaneous players in the same world instance. Which means a strong procedural generation, which is the most tricky part of "my ideal modern MMO".
- An emphasis on builds. As in, you have to design how you're going to approach the game, go wide as well as deep, to get the most out of it.

An example of a "build" system is something straightforward: You want to be an offensive healer: drain mobs to heal your friends. So you're looking at Dark Hierarch with its bonus to drain effects. But you have to decide how to get there, because you can go Adventurer ➜ Healer ➜ Cleric ➜ Priest ➜ Hierarch ➜ Dark Hierarch, or you can try Healer ➜ Cleric ➜ Dark Cleric ➜ Dark Priest ➜ Dark Hierarch. You get different stats and boni from the Dark Cleric and Dark Priest than the Priest and Hierarch, which may, or may not complicate things. Do you prefer the extra mana regeneration that late Hierarchs have, or the Reduce Humanoids Resistance from early Dark Priest? Or maybe both, which means that you can go back to Hierarch after finishing Dark Hierarch. Or go wide, and try both Dark and Light Hierarch, because you've got a good way to get CHA up to 350 and get Celestial Hierarch which requires the two classes and the CHA. Or nobody has managed to unlock Celestial Hierarch, so you'll go Abyssal Hierarch with Dark and Pain Hierarch pre-req (and lots of STA). At least the Abyssal Prophet class which follows seems awesome, even if it takes a full 30+ tier-7 raid to access where you can pick the class.

That kind of stuff. The goal is to have various OP builds, and you pick the path that goes best with what you usually do, given that you can always level (or finish leveling) classes later. It is extremely complex, so you don't even try to "balance" it. Since players can always grow (albeit more and more slowly), it also means late players get the bonus of people having figured optimal paths rather than trying builds and changing them.
 
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Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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20,910
1) You are not a chosen hero of destiny.
2) Tab Target Combat to enrage people on the internet who quit every MMO after 30 days anyway.
3) EVE-style progression, with the ability for people who join later to grind EXP up to whatever the current server EXP level is to catch up.
4) Abilities have separate effects/numbers in PVE and PVP areas. If you're on a FFA PVP server, you accept the fact that you're going to get trucked by some PVE abilities that aren't balanced for PVP in the overworld.
5) Focus on regional stories in questing, versus world-threatening overarching plots.
6) A fucking million gear slots. Anarchy Online level "you've got three pages with 20 slots each fuck you" gearing.
7) Retarded pet AI so that the forums are always filled with amusing threads.
8) Africa/Middle-East mythology setting so that the game gets free press from angry journalists about co-opting minority non-white culture.
9) Bad-ass Hippo Raid Boss.
10) Twinking your alts into miniature gods.
11) Crafting Expensive, Time-Consuming, and Useless in the base game. Two expansions later, introduce Coldain Shawl equivalent like the asshole I am.
 
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tyen

EQ in a browser wait time: ____
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"What does your ideal modern MMO be like?"

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McCheese

SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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Basically WoW pet battles but more robust and without all the shitty raiding and other garbage content.
 
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Urlithani

Vyemm Raider
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3,129
Working title: Project N.M.E. (No more elves)

Backstory: Elves overthrew the dragons, who went into hiding. Elves ruled for thousands of years, and were assholes that enslaved every other race. Eventually they had a civil war, creating a magical apocalypse. The lingering magic is deadly to elves; the loyalists reside in orbital stations, the rebels fled underground. The slave races inherit the land.

1. Giant procedurally generated terrain. Enough real estate for every person, and room for every playstyle.
2. Levels open up more options, not necessarily more power. 2 level 1's can defeat a level 20 if they have the right gear.
3. Crafted and looted gear is equal; crafted gear lets you choose the abilities, however. Stack +mana and +mana regen and become a glass cannon, or balance out resists/+HP/+damage to be ready against any threat, but vulnerable to specialists. Nothing in the game is soulbound.
4. Action like TERA style combat.
5. Spells are fully customizable with sliders. Choose an element, choose a shape (cone, line, burst, targeted area), duration, and the mana cost increases the more you tack onto it. Blow your load with an Arcane Kamehameha finisher, or whittle them down with efficient fire bolts + dots.
6. Artifacts are unique, one of a kind items. They cannot be stored in a bank, and disappear if their requirements are not met. Tales will be told of how a bandit king used the Banner of Lost Souls to hold a kingdom ransom, until he was betrayed, and the Banner fell into the hands of a small kingdom that used it to expand by destroying 1 rival and suing 2 others for peace.
7. Each crafting game is a minigame; the better you do, the better quality the product you make. See #8.
8. Mobile/Browser game integration. Mobile minigamers have their farm with all the tradeskills available. Mobile gamers can be hired and can replace NPC's in the MMO. Need a good alchemist for your guild? Look at the top scorers of the alchemy minigame; the gold you pay them can be used for in-app purchases instead of using RL money. Posting/hiring can be done publicly or anonymously.
9. Game uses RL flora and fauna, so it's educational and people learn about stuff in addition to being fun. "Timmy, what are you doing on your phone all the time?" "Learning about jewelcrafting so I can sell rings and expand my farm. Did you know aquamarines are a type of beryl with a hexagonal crystal structure and a vitreous luster?" "Oh, well that's nice son." "Yeah mom, they also give more mana depending on the quality of the cut, and add frost damage if socketed into a weapon."
10. Cults. You don't have to join a guild. Just forfeit your soul and X% of all your gold to an otherworldly being in exchange for power! You can't heal or buff non-cultists (and vice versa), but that's a small price to pay. Join the cult of Dagon, and ravage the coastlines and waterways with tentacles, or worship one of the immortal dragons. If you like to socialize, the Cult of Elurea are pacifist wanderers that can only heal others, and are sworn to non violence.
 
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Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I don't give a shit what it looks like but it has to be fun. That is the one major component missing from most MMOs.
 

YttriumF

The Karenist Karen
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I would start with the team, company culture, and studio locations before tackling game concepts. Great companies attract and retain great talent. Great talent along with great player communities is what will produce a great mmo.
 
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Lenas

Trump's Staff
7,456
2,206
• EQ 1 lore.
• theoretical mechanics of EQNext
• game play / job system of FFXIV
• collectibles / achievements of WoW
• no cash shop at all.
 

Lunis

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,247
1,470
- Unreal 4 engine graphics
- Vanguard classes
- Keith Parkinson's art style
- WoW polish
- grouping is most efficient way to gain xp
- no cosmetic store bullshit
- raiding is about strategy rather than dodging the red circles of death
 
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Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
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At this point? A well-implemented alternate reality MMO with required alternate reality glasses that don't exist yet.


I'd also be interested in a very sandbox driven MMO where the players start with absolutely nothing, and develop the infrastructure, tools, cities, technology etc.

Ex: a server starts out caveman style, players use basic ingame systems to develop everything from road building to smelting to electronics. It'd be like an MMO version of civilization.
 
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ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
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At this point? A well-implemented alternate reality MMO with required alternate reality glasses that don't exist yet.


I'd also be interested in a very sandbox driven MMO where the players start with absolutely nothing, and develop the infrastructure, tools, cities, technology etc.

Ex: a server starts out caveman style, players use basic ingame systems to develop everything from road building to smelting to electronics. It'd be like an MMO version of civilization.
As long as there is genocide and random plagues/natural disasters that make shit super hardmode I'm in
 

Randin

Trakanon Raider
1,922
872
For me? Go hard on the “virtual world” side of mmo philosophy:

-drop linear main quest lines that make your character (and every character) into the Chosen One.

-develop systems that do away with the static game world, and allow persistent change to come about both through player actions, and through the various game systems interacting with each other (player-run settlements, adaptive AI, etc). Settlements are created and destroyed, monsters migrate...essentially all the stuff EQN was pitching.

-make character classes feel like a part of the world, rather than just a set of stats and abilities; have ability acquisition and use differ from class to class, give them substantial non-combat utility...basically, have a class’ lore substantially inform its game mechanics.
 

pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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huge, well-designed dungeons filled with good lore and hand-crafted loot. dungeons that cover huge level ranges (so that level 5 newb at the zone line gets to gawk at the high level guy that runs past him). meaningful travel. EXP penalty on death but keep gear. everyone has to bind in the city, tho, no binding anywhere else.
 
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