Have you seen Gawain’s mmorpg Manifesto? He brings up some very good points and I think anyone that is interested in this kind of game should read his post. The growing list of what should be in a mmorpg is something every developer of these games should be emailed. Feel free to email G with suggestions if you think you have something that needs to be added to the list. Be prepared and have a good reason why your thing should be listed. G is awfully opinionated about these games, as we all are. Here are the first 5 on his list (to bait you into going to his site):
1. A 100% player-driven economy. NO npcs, except for possibly quest npcs, though only on a very limited basis.
2. A Dynamic landscape. The lands that the game takes place in MUST BE ABLE TO CHANGE EASILY. Trees must be able to be cut down, rocks must be able to be moved, and the landscape must be able to display damage. (from say, dragon fire or cannon shot)
3. The land must follow real-world physics and cycles, and must be affected by them. When it rains, rivers and lakes rise. It becomes more difficult to walk on bare land, as it becomes slippery and muddy. When it snows, the rivers and lakes freeze (or CAN freeze) allowing characters to walk on their surfaces. After rain, fog must form above bodies of water, limiting visibility. Lightning must be able to strike tries and tall buildings, as well as characters (though the chance can be obviously low).
4. Day, Night, Seasons, and other special conditions must have a real impact on characters. In the winter, characters without adequate clothing must slow down and eventually freeze, unless they find a heat source quickly. Rain must lower visibility, as must nightfall. If it rains blood and meteors, characters must be able to be damaged by falling debris.
5. Players must be able to have an effect on the game world. Players must be able to construct buildings anywhere they please, provided they have adequate materials and time, and the ground is reasonably flat, and they have the required skills to do so. Players must be able to chop down trees, haul lumber, and process minerals, etc etc.
Credit for the above list of course goes to Gawain. I had a small hand in the tweaking of number ten. And there has been a number of excellent suggestions from Doom.
PVgmeTSUyLs
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Sooo, 1000 lumberjacks go out and cut down every tree in the game, does the server die?
No. Trees respawn? eventually. And unused lumber rots. just like in real life, except much faster. those 1000 lumberjacks would have to have 1000 people buying lumber off of them in order to make the time worth it. And those 1000 wood crafters would have to have people buying shit from THEM to make them want the wood. etc etc. And thats a damn lot of crafters. I guess it would be a crafter server if that happened.
But just for kicks, lets say your lumberjack skill goes up for every tree you cut down or rather that you have a CHANCE that it will go up. so you just cut down trees whether or not you have people buying lumber off of you or not. Well, you also have monsters in the woods to contend with, so you’ll have to either hire guards or something, to follow you around, or you’ll have to be buff enough to take care of yourself in the woods (which hopefully most lumberjack characters are). more economy building. And in either case, you would spend some time watching for enemies.
The forests would also have to be massive, just like real life. miles and miles of nothing but trees, which are constantly regrowing.
Also, 1 tree may equal a large number of boards. who knows.
In other news, Turk, I made a seperate page for the list: http://www.digitalalloy.com/da/moralrust/index.html
if you want to change your link.
Of course to make it even more interesting I think there should also be consequences for cutting down all of the trees in an area. Effects that kinda of thing would have on the environment. Maybe certain mobs/animals depend on the trees either as a home (as with birds) or for whatever other reason. And perhaps that said race of mobs would die out if this mass deforestation was to take place.
I think that would be a hell of a twist on the mmorpg genre if certain mobs were to die because of a player or group of players effects on the landscape. Let alone all of the fun one could have polluting the world (as in real life) via air, sea, and land pollution.
Even a step further. Lets say one of these species have been endangered because of the player community. I say that there should be a penalty for killing these “endangered species” as in real life.
And I feel pollution is one thing that is truly needed for the tradecrafts. Blacksmithing should cause air pollution. And who knows what kind of nasty by products something like spellcrafting could leave behind.
Just my two cents.
heh. I don’t think the game should impose actual penalties.. I think a better thing would be if the animal just dies out… then you can no longer hunt that animal… and any potions, armor, etc that you needed things off that animal to make… you can no longer make. end of story. After the first vital potion ingredient dies out, you better believe there would be some posts springing up from the alchemists on the message boards. “Because of you fuckers, we now have to wait until the damn forest grows back in order to produce the fire-shield potions again. too bad you need those to get X artifact weapon.”
For some reason I like the idea of what kind of impact the various tradecrafts would have on the environment. Even more extreme (and yeah probably un fun), how about the dead bodies of players and mobs? Imagine if a corpse rotted in a water source that a town was dependent on. For some reason I just like the idea of a realistic mmorpg, as far as a fantasy world can be real.
In fact the corpses could be picked up and disposed by a newly created tradecraft. I’m sure there was a name for those people. I just can’t think of anything other than the “Bring out your dead” guy.
Well, I dunno if you would want to get that specific. Im all about realism, but how many times would a dude “fall in some water” next to a town when he dies? I guess you could have an undertaker profession… but im not sure I would want to go that far really. I dunno. you think I should add it?