I play WoW and love it, but I would really like to see a “post-apocalyptic” MMORPG.
You could run around collecting vehicle parts so you could raid the local hospital for expired antibiotics.
You’d fight for control of oil fields and water supplies, etc…
You could do so much with the genre.
A “Mad Max” kind of thing…
You may be interested in the latest venture by Lord British, Tabula Rasa. It looks to have a lot of promise.
I liked the RIFTS stuff.
But just Car Wars? Hmmm. IMO, you will need a little more than just fightin for the next tank of gas to keep it interesting (and to keep long term subscriptions going.)
“Ooops. Got’s to go! Hope to get my epic carburator this run!” heh.
But yeah, there may be a market for something other than another high-fantasy setting MMORG. (Is Eve online still doing ok?)
You mean Auto Assault? Must not be that much interest, being as it’s shutting down at the end of next month.
City of Heros/Villains player. I like your idea.
How about an MMORPG version of Grand Theft Auto ? Crime families/gangs instead of guilds/supergroups, and so forth.
I seem to remember a post-apocalyptic zombie MMORPG being in development, that sounded similar to what you described. That was a while ago, haven’t heard anything about it recently.
But what I REALLY want to see is a PvP-focused MMORPG with minimal PvE elements. Think about the world PvP recently implemented in WoW, and then apply it to the entire game world. All quests would be based on PvP objectives, and there would be very few safe havens, because even the towns could be attacked (and it would be highly encouraged!)
Also, I’d like to say that I’m sick of MMORPG’s that take hundreds of hours to level up on. I want a game that I can spend 40 hours on and be at tiptop shape.
Running 32,000 online at a time, up from about 24,000 just a few months ago. I’m a long-time WoW player, but I’ve become so hooked on EVE that I’ve given up on WoW and City of H/V. EVE is really different in a lot of ways, and it seems that contrary to other MMORPGs, the longer you play it, the more hooked you get.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a realistic medievel MMORPG. Instead of guilds/groups, you’d have towns: there’d only be a dozen or two, but if you lose your town/castle, you’re hosed. And have “death” involve a real penalty, just like EVE, such as perhaps losing a character level or all your equipment.
Sounds a bit like something I dreamed up here once, with a goodly dose of strategizing & intrigue to boot. Ah here it is.
I wouldn’t mind seeing an MMORPG set in ancient times, like Hellenistic Greece or Persia or Asia. Way too many RPG’s are centered around the Medieval/Renaissance Ages.
I don’t know much about EVE. Is it like Wing Commander Privateer or Freelancer? That’s something I’d like to see.
I’d like to see player-driven everything. Economy, politics, territories, wars, factions.
Players would run the economy with the assistance of hired labor. That is… you could lay a claim on an iron mine, or something, and hire NPC workers to mine it (the more workers, the more iron per day you generate), and NPC guards to guard it. You’d occasionally have to run guarded caravans to a city to sell it to real people, who’d be armorsmiths and such. You could even escort the caravan yourself and with friends to ensure it’s not hijacked by other players.
Or you could be a farmer with the same setup, and sell food, which people would need to survive, at a city market. Or you could buy a boat and be a fisherman - or a pirate, there’d be a lot of freedom. But then there could be anti-pirate sailors too - perhaps a city was losing too much taxable commerce to pirates and put bounties on them.
Cities would be run by players, too. The government would be elected by actual people who lived there (there’d be player-made homes), various rules could be enacted (taxation, maybe certain classes/factions/races/whatever weren’t allowed in the city, how the taxes weren’t spent, how defenses were conducted, trade rules, etc), filled with markets and shops, owned by players and staffed by NPCs.
Actual trade networks between cities - caravans, ships, whatever. There’d be a whole lot of land area to allow for a lot of people to own their little piece. The economy would be completely player-driven. If one faction successfully sank a critical ore shipment to an a warring city, they simply wouldn’t have that ore to work with, to build weapons, or whatever, until the next shipment was in - and the price of the remaining ore would skyrocket.
Probably too much work to implement, but I like the idea of a completely player driven world with real supply/demand, politics, land ownership, etc.
Check out warhammer online, in development. The people behind Dark Age of Camelot are doing it. I never played it, but I heard it was good and had very good PVP elements - a wide variety of classes but well balanced, meaningful world pvp - sieges, capturable territory, etc. I’m looking forward to it.
Check out EVE Online. Pretty much everything is player run and there are massive wars for control of large sections of space. There are four major NPC empires and a good number of the worlds under their control are “Hi Sec(urity)”, meaning that if you attack someone there the cops will show up and slap you down pretty quickly (but you can attack anyone, anywhere at any time if you want) but most of the worlds are either “Lo Sec” or “0.0” (where anything goes). You can attack (or be attacked by) anyone, anytime there with no interference.
Large sections of 0.0 space are under the control of Player Character corporations and massive wars are fought over control of these areas.
The entire economy is pretty much player run. Mining, manufacturing, shipping and trading. Of course, the best minerals are only available in Low or No-Sec space.
The entire game is starship based. You are a ship. You can own and switch between multiple ships but you never get out of the ship and walk around. You can dock at a space station but you pretty much only have a static view of your ship while there (and a lot of status and trade screens). All action takes place in space.
Space combat isn’t like Wing Commander or Freelancer. These aren’t space fighters. Combat is more like a battle between capital ships. You set basic maneuvering commands (close distance, orbit at a distance, move away, etc) and specify targets for your weapons. Combat is more tactical than reflexes (though it is still real-time and nail-biting).
Ships are extremely customizable, with literally hundreds (if not thousands) of possible combinations of weapons, armor, shields, energy sources, sensors, engines and so on. There are also hundreds of skills that your character can train in.
It’s a very complex game. It is also quite different from most MMORPGs out there. (If you decide to try it out, look me up; I’m Denis Jacquard, currently at the Center for Advanced Studies in Slays, out in the Placid region.)
I’ve heard of EVE Online, but didn’t know it was so complex…maybe I’ll try it out.
SenorBeef, I don’t see that happening any time soon…people are dicks. They couldn’t work together to build a society like that. Even the ones that do make it would be feudal in nature, and the rest of the world would probably end up in total anarchy. Warhammer Online sounds pretty neat. I’m not familiar with the Warhammer universe (dabbled a bit in 40k at one time), but my understanding is that it’s very similar to Warcraft. Is that correct?
Just a word of warning; the initial learning curve is high. They’ve done their level best to make it a newbie-friendly game, but there’s a lot of fundamentals to learn. Once you’ve learned it, though, it’s a fantastic game. I’m not even sure it should be called a game, but instead a virtual world, as there are no clear goals to get to as in other MMORPGs; you just do what you want. I’ve seen people who have never fired a gun in their entire careers, but are magnificent scientists and manufacturers who are at the top of the player heap.
I dreamed of a Metroid universe-based MMO once…IIRC, it was a first-person shooter type game in the style of the Prime series. I was a freelance bounty hunter.
In that vein, a Bond-verse MMO might be nifty.
I was also joking with a friend that if Nippon Ichi (makers of those frighteningly time-consuming SRPG titles like La Pucelle Tactics, Phantom Brave, Disgaea, etc) ever came out with an RPG, I would never leave my apartment.
Overall, though, I just want to play an MMO where leveling up or completing quests isn’t a complete grind, and I can be assured that I’m not interacting with total morons and/or assholes.
With zombies!
~ Khaveman, Shattered Hand Server, WoW
The general genre would be Cyberpunk, but with strong player control over the economy.
You’d start out doing muggings and simple burglaries, and selling the crap you sold to other lowlifes in an alley somewhere. Kinda like the Auction system in WoW, but there’d be more loot.
As you progressed, you’d get more lucrative criminal contracts (mob hits, corporate espionage, etc), which you’d use to bankroll your own, increasingly legitimate, business.
Eventually, you’re not just selling stuff to players, you’re also hiring them to make assaults on rival businesses. That other guild is flooding the market with cheap pistols? Blow up their factory. Want the design for that advanced eye implant? Break into their office and steal it. Or hire someone to do it.
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter…
Seriously, I’m aching for a properly cyberpunk MMORPG. The Shadowrun one looks neat-ish, but the FPS style is putting me off (I’m not so good at those games, even though I like them, and in an online setting I would be so PWNED it’s not funny).
Could be. That might make it interesting. The mature people who can play well with others might form nice, healthy cities where the more assholish players are loners trying to eek out a living in the slums, or small towns, or out in the wild. It might even be that the mature, goal-oriented players become, essentially, a civilization defending against the barbaric unorganized dickhead kiddies in the wild. “Man the gates, the l33t kiddie horde is attacking!”
That’s what would make it interesting - if it were truly player driven, with most aspects of the world being able to change, you’d have emergent gameplay with situations you didn’t expect.
I’m not really sure, to be honest. I know there are at least two different warhammer universes - a sci-fi one where the RTS game was set, and a fantasy one which I believe is what the mmorpg will be. I don’t know much about the universe - most of what interests me is what my friend tells me of DAOC which makes me think that a refined, second generation DAOC-style game might be really cool.
A memory (human, not computer) wipe followed by a re-release of EQ1, with all the original bugs, lag, and fubar patching.