Have you ever heard of A Tale in the Desert? It’s a no-combat MMORPG in which players cooperate to build a civilization in ancient Egypt. Players build compounds, farm, mine, create works of art, elect leaders, pass laws (which are added to the actual game code, if necessary), and attempt to pass Tests to show their worthiness as a civilization. I’m not very interested in it for myself, but my sister-in-law loves it. Warning: If you’re not into serious crafting-grind, it’s probably not for you.
I just want more games in the sci-fi genre (as Antinor said, Tabula Rasa looks promising). Failing that, how about a fantasy game that’s as little like EQ or WoW as possible? Regardless, I expect to stick with City of Heroes/Villains until they shut down the servers.
Call me crazy, but I enjoyed multi-boxing in EverQuest. It feels like you’re accomplishing more when you’re working on multiple characters simultaneously. I’d love to to have a MMORPG that was built from the ground up to play two or more characters from one UI.
Allow me to call in my cleric sidekick in a small group when all that we need is a healer to start having some fun. Then, I can send him ‘home’ automatically when a dedicated healer shows up. I’d be all over that. Limit accounts to only two characters per server to keep things interesting.
I’m a big fan of WOW and Koei’s Dynasty Warriors series. I’d always thought that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms lent itself perfectly to an MMORPG. You have built-in factions (the main three, and a bunch of smaller ones), built-in maps, and character classes based on their interpretations of the various characters (casters based on Sima Yi and Zhang Jiao; healers based on Zhuge Liang; fighers based on Lu Bu, Zhang Liao, and Guan Yu; rogue/thiefs based on Zhang He and Gan Ning; hunters/rangers based on Xiahou Dun and Huang Zhong; etc.).
Also, much like the actual story, you could change factions based on your actions. The PvE gameplay could be very much like it is on the console now. Obviously they’d have to slow it down, and add some kind of interface for special attacks, spells, items, equipment, etc. In cooperative or PvP, you play the role of the various offciers, command the soldiers under you, and complete various historical (or artificial) objectives.
They could also interestingly allow the world to be dynamic, where factions actually can conquer certain regions, make alliances, etc.
Regardless, it would add a much needed twist to the series.
Again, EVE Online is different (unique?) than other MMO’s I’ve played: there are no character levels, and all learning/skill advancement is done in real-time, not through “experience points.”
For example: if you want to learn the Battleship skill, and it takes 23 hours to get that skill from 0 to 1, and you start training it at noon on Tuesday, then you’ll have that skill 23 hours later, on Wednesday at 11am - whether you’re online or not, playing or not.
For this reason, longevity is rewarded in ways different than XP-based games, because there’s no way for someone to play 14 hours-a-day and “catch up.” And, unlike WoW or similar games, a PVP loss means you’ve lost your entire ship and its contents.
Since there is no XP, all quests are optional. This isn’t to say there isn’t any grind; you’ll need to find a way to make money, whether through accepting missions (quests), killing NPC pirates, killing or extorting other players, mining, manufacturing, or some combination. Any one of those done for a long stretch will seem like a grind.
This is generally true, but for those with a rudimentary understanding of economics there’s rather a lot of easy ISK to be made, and once you’ve made some you can invest it in ways that will make you more at low levels of effort. For example you could buy a battleship blueprint and sell copies, which wouldn’t earn vast sums but could take as little as 10-15 minutes a month. Up front cost is a tad steep, but if it was too easy there’d be no profit in it.
But yeah, most players have to grind for isk to at least some extent.
Last I heard there is a Three Kingdoms-Style MMO already out, but my only beef with it is that you’d probably have to chuck any semblance of historical accuracy out the window (not that the DW games are all that historically accurate, but since it’s at most a two player game you can pretend that the alternate endings all happen in parallel universes or something), unless the game designers are smarter than me and have figured out how to make things like the Battle of the Red Bluffs work within the context of an MMO.
And maybe I’m just too easily amused, but I did give myself a chuckle imagining what the in-game dialogue for such a game might be like…
Not to hijack, but I fired up EVE on a 14-day free trial. There’s a lot to absorb at first, but it’s not bad. I did some missions, killed some pirates, bought a new ship…so what now? Maybe it would help to join a corp. I’m a little lost out here.
I’ve only played FFXI, and, while I loved it, I think it’s biggest problem was the lack of solo content. I’m afraid to play WoW because I think it’s played mostly by the same people who play on battle.net. ::shudder::
As for the OP’s question, I’d love to see an MMO that generally rewards skill more than sheer time-sinkage. In FFXI, the best items were not usually awarded to the best players, nor the ones who had the best teamwork, but merely the people who either spent the most time camping/instancing, or of course the ones who cheated…
As a veteran of both – it’s not. The spirit of the games and the communities are very, very different.
I think WoW is a very well put together game, but I would like to see a historically-themed game. Ideally, one with multiple factions ala WoW – Romans who couldn’t team up with Gauls, for example.
As you are well aware, millions and millions of people play WoW. I would say there is no single prevalent sub-group. If you want to fear WoW, fear that it will suck your life into oblivion.
I’d like to see a different kind of science fictional setting, without ships battling, without the military aspects. It would be set on another planet with lots of imaginative locales, races, and monsters, and would allow lots of exploration and role-playing, maybe archeology, mysticism, and a lot could be done with altered physics appropriate for the world. Travel to other worlds could be dependent on “quests”, levels, etc.
Joining a corp is good. Look for EVE University; they’re a corp set up to help new players get into the game. Once you start running missions with other players and get into the PVP parts of the game it changes a lot.
Being lost isn’t unusual. EVE is referred to as a “sandbox” game because it doesn’t set out any type of path for you to follow. Joining a corp is good there because it can give you some direction. Check the official forums to learn about the various corps, hang out in some of the chat channels and find one that fits your style of play. There are plenty out there.
I want an MMORPG with no grind, just solid gameplay all the way up the ladder.
This will probably mean a major reduction in loot; no pressure to get the thing with the most pluses.
There needs to be many valid paths to progress rather than just a handful of overwhelmingly powerful ones that drive the game. All character types need to be able to stand on their own in the right situations and every combonation should be valid.
If the game is about going out and beating up enemies then focus on making that interesting in and of itself, not because you might get something.
Oh, and no more crappy fantasy settings. I have set myself up as the supreme arbiter of what is “crappy” and it includes orcs, elves, and clerics (whether actually ripping off the D&D concept wholesale or just ones that are the same concept with the name changed).
