The perfect MMO

[digitalblue]

So there are starting to be some really good MMO's out there however each one so far has it's own issues. Or at least some aspect of the game that isn't well appreciated. So what would take to make the perfect MMO? Or at least as close to it as possible. Now granted you can't keep everyone happy and there are limitations on what you can and can not do due to hardware or limitations of bandwidth. But if those limitations what would it take in your opnion to make the perfect MMO?

Here are some of the items that I would like to throw out there

Open close quests - Basicly the concept of this is that there are quests out there that appear and start a chain, however once this quest is taken no one else can do this quest until a set of conditions are met weather that be that you complete the quest chain or maybe even die at some part. How ever when this quest is complete an event happens that opens up one or more new quests previously unavailable. This can go on and create more till some point when a significant even happens and causes the original quest to open back up again. This will give players the feeling of significantly impacting the world and causing world altering events. I mean can you imagine finishing an event that causes a dragon to fly about terrorizing the world until someone completes the quest to destroy him etc etc...

Classless system - I perfer a classless sytems because it allows the players to come up with intersting combinations of skill sets and create thier own 'class'

World PvP - I liked how WoW started out with world PvP however there were some issues that would have to be addressed (I don't know how it was on most servers but Terran Mill area was a headace same with Stranglethorn Vale). IE some way of preventing a harassing envrioment so that pvp can still co-exist with a pve world.

Heroic Dungeons - Endgame instances that allow large groups or guilds to undertake for some kind of reward (weather it be gear or items needed to craft something or even tokens to be turned in for a reward)

Player influanced economey - This would be the most difficult however I have an idea. Say there is a bartering skill that allows you to barter with an NPC when you sell an item. That NPC would then take that item and resell it to whomever may want that item with some profit of course. Or at least that is the beginning of the idea some hashing out would be needed.

Well that's th begining of the idea for a perfect MMO. I'm sure I'll add more when I think of it.

[nonchalance]

Don't mean to rain on the parade, but a classless system is incompatible with world PVP - balance becomes literally impossible at that point.

[mightbe]

http://www.progressquest.com/

[AversionFX]

A lot of these ideas are already present in multiple MMOs.

MMOs have classes because jacks of all trades suck at everything equally.

Heroic dungeons exist in WoW, and many MMOs have end-game raid dungeons for between 10 and 40 characters. Possibly even more for games like EQ.

MMO economies are delicate because it's so easy for a single person to ruin them.

Any game with PVP is going to lead to people destroying newbie areas. It's a fact of life.

[Heretic Machine]

Classless systems don't work in MMOs simply because there has always been one build that is more awesome than any others. In a class based system, this still usually leads to diversity out of necessity for power diversification in groups (assuming grouping is encouraged, unlike 95% of WoW), though you end up with ONE type of mage, and ONE type of tank usually. In a classless system, you get one powerful build that everyone uses, particurally when grouping isn't a factor.

UO is a prime example of this, at any point in time in that game's history there was a single build that was extraordinarily powerful, and thus made up the majority of the player base. Skill balance in the game was constantly tweaked, but it always ended up with min-maxers finding an optimal build, whether it was an archer, straight mage, tank mage, axe man... whatever. UO is also why people in newer games are often restricted in the armor types they can use, both for balance issues, as well as aesthetic (blame the classic Dex Suit: Plate shoulders, plate gloves, chain vest, chain leggings, chain coif).

As much fun as freedom is in an MMO, every bit of it is abused, and thus it must be handed to the player base carefully. This same phenomenon can be seen in P&P RPGs; in games where the players are free to do as they like, the game gets broken, and in more structured games with DMs who aren't afraid to rule out certain power-gaming behaviors, the game tends to work out better.

Also: Your quest system sounds like the polar opposite of fun, on top of being a nightmare to develop for.

[jeffool]

I don't think classless systems are incompatible with World-PVP. Classes (in MMOs, and to my knowledge) only exist to determine what skill trees players have access to. In my opinion to limit a character in such a way is a bit odd. Instead wouldn't it be better to have other skills, more commonly seen in single player Western RPGs (str, dex, int, etc.) that are affected by the player's actions? (Swing a heavy weapon for short furious battles? Get stronger, and quick, but low dex. Tired of that? Use light weaponry, your str lowers, and your dex grows, keep the same speed.)

So far as World-PVP? Well, yeah, experienced people would completely stomp the newer in fights, and that's how it should be. Just give

The bigger problem (in my eyes,) is indeed the MMO player economy. Of course, if you let people loot from others, that's a bit of a help. Then again, I'm crazy. I'm okay with permadeath.

/edit: Peri! I think the problem is how games let armor sets be so much better/worse than others. I say let'em all be nearly the same, varying in small ways more than large in effect, but vary wildly in appearance.

Wait, lemme find it..... Here (http://blog.jeffool.com/2008/01/05/the-clothes-should-make-the-man/)!

/doubt edit: Yeah, but I liked Ultima. I think it's more fun (and less broken-by-design than, say, WoW.)

[Heretic Machine]

I don't think classless systems are incompatible with World-PVP. Classes (in MMOs, and to my knowledge) only exist to determine what skill trees players have access to. In my opinion to limit a character in such a way is a bit odd. Instead wouldn't it be better to have other skills, more commonly seen in single player Western RPGs (str, dex, int, etc.) that are affected by the player's actions? (Swing a heavy weapon for short furious battles? Get stronger, and quick, but low dex. Tired of that? Use light weaponry, your str lowers, and your dex grows, keep the same speed.)

You just described UO (except you melded attributes and skills together), and it was broken as hell. I loved the game at the time, but it simply didn't work right.

[OrangePulp]

More raining on the parade:

I think the quest cycle idea thing, while possibly good in concept, would be ruined by the actual people who play MMOs. If nothing else, simply the amount of people who are going to play a good one. Locking quests to one person means you'd need a vastly larger amount of quests for the player base to get the same utility that they do out of something like wow's quest system.

Classless system: As Perigon pointed out (does anyone call you Heretic?), systems like this are generally broken when it comes to something like an MMO. In a single player rpg, or pen and paper or what have you, it's fine, because there's more depth to building a character. But when you're competing with other players and such, everyone wants the maximum effectiveness, and that's going to be found in one build. And the more variety you have with skills and powers and such (which is normally good for a game), the greater the headache of trying to achieve a balance that will never come.

A good example is early City of Heroes builds. Originally, they didn't have archtypes; you could take whatever power sets you wanted. As it turned out, however, tank mage was simply better than everything else. The tanking and mage sets weren't broken by themselves, but when you put them together (high defense and high dps), you have the best of both worlds. But if you weakened those skill sets, you'd end up with one average strength build and a bunch of underpowered builds (what tank and mage would normally be used for).

World PvP: My only problem with world pvp is that I haven't yet seen a system that really prevents griefing. Now, in a game like EVE, that might be a large part of the game, and thus it's a design decision. But if we're talking "perfect MMO", then you're going to want to include the PvE crowd. And if someone just wants to go kill some mobs to do this or that quest, they don't want to have to deal with random asshats 40 levels higher that kill them repeatedly. In a way it doesn't seem hard to discourage this: simply levy a heavy penalty on characters killing other characters 5 levels lower or what have you. However, my thought is that a lot of people who like world PvP like it because they can do shit like this, and since people who don't like it's current implementation can just go play on a pve server, it will probably remain fundamentally broken.

I suppose with the world PvP issue, I'm mostly thinking of WoW. I haven't really checked out any of the newer MMOs coming out, so I'm not sure how they handle it. But also remember we're talking about a "perfect" MMO, so I'm thinking equal parts PvE and PvP players (as opposed to a game like shadowbane where the main focus was large scale pvp and such).

[digitalblue]

nonchalance -Don't mean to rain on the parade, but a classless system is incompatible with world PVP - balance becomes literally impossible at that point

That can depend on numerous factors, Balance for the most part would be left up to the players however, with skills, feats and other items being based off a point requirement or even a skill tree could be feasable.


AversionFX
A lot of these ideas are already present in multiple MMOs.

Yes but not all of them present in ONE MMO
MMO economies are delicate because it's so easy for a single person to ruin them.

Yes but with you selling to an NPC a base price for everything could be set or at least a lowest amount to sell for.
Any game with PVP is going to lead to people destroying newbie areas. It's a fact of life
I agree however there can be items set in place to prevent some of the griefing IE Quest NPC's can't be killed. A massive guard spawn etc etc.

Heretic Machine
Classless systems don't work in MMOs simply because there has always been one build that is more awesome than any others. In a class based system, this still usually leads to diversity out of necessity for power diversification in groups (assuming grouping is encouraged, unlike 95% of WoW), though you end up with ONE type of mage, and ONE type of tank usually. In a classless system, you get one powerful build that everyone uses, particurally when grouping isn't a factor.

If you promote a group enviroment I believe that multipule classes can exist in some form.

Also you brought up a great example of where it was difficult. I believe with some tweaking and extensive testing that issue can be worked arround or at least with.

[digitalblue]

Classless system: As Perigon pointed out (does anyone call you Heretic?), systems like this are generally broken when it comes to something like an MMO. In a single player rpg, or pen and paper or what have you, it's fine, because there's more depth to building a character. But when you're competing with other players and such, everyone wants the maximum effectiveness, and that's going to be found in one build. And the more variety you have with skills and powers and such (which is normally good for a game), the greater the headache of trying to achieve a balance that will never come.

I agree that it will be exreamly difficult and require massive amounts of forthough in order to overcome player min maxing. Especially in a world that allows pvp. Mostly because people will find those buildsets that will be throughly number crunched and amount to something of a best build. But if you take that this will happen anyways and factor that into how you build skill sets I belive that will create some diversity. Basicly play into the multi build and tweak it so there will be a paper rock scissors effect even with straite builds. Now I know there is some grief about people saying that they hate being beaten by one class or one skill set but that is where I would most likely have to draw the line because if you are always being beaten by paper then just wait till scissors comes along.

as far as griefing I'm not looking to prevent it just curb it slightly.

I think the quest cycle idea thing, while possibly good in concept, would be ruined by the actual people who play MMOs. If nothing else, simply the amount of people who are going to play a good one. Locking quests to one person means you'd need a vastly larger amount of quests for the player base to get the same utility that they do out of something like wow's quest system.

Well that would be the thing, yes it would require more quests but think of it this way
If a is not available then b is available and it would not be the only quest system, there would still be the stagnent gofer and gokil quests available. The larger world altering quests would most likely be for groups to start and finish as.

[AversionFX]

Well that would be the thing, yes it would require more quests but think of it this way
If a is not available then b is available and it would not be the only quest system, there would still be the stagnent gofer and gokil quests available. The larger world altering quests would most likely be for groups to start and finish as.

Within the scope of MMOs, there really isn't much more than fetch, kill, or envoy quests. Tradeskill based quests, sure, but those boil down to "Kill X to get Y in order to learn Z."

World altering quests may be cool, but subjecting the entire world to things such as releasing some immense spirit that ends up wreaking havoc on the world at large, not so fun, actually. Small, localized, non high-traffic areas? Sure.

The coolest quest I've ever seen, is a raid quest in WoW, where swarms of undead attack a village, and players have to fend off the attack. There's also the global quest of opening up Ahn'Qiraj, and the person responsible getting a realm-unique title (Scarab Lord).

When people want to do something other than participate in world events, punishing them for being in the same vicinity of said event turns people off.

Also, on the topic of your perfect MMO, what kind of penalty would there be for death?

[asimonk]

You can have the greatest world pvp system in the world and it will still fail due to population imbalances which will inevitably arise.

I'd say classless also fails as mentioned above. I'd just be happy if they got rid of the respec fees in WoW. Bullshit that a prot warrior is completely incapable of anything other than tanking without paying to play as it were. Its the most extreme example, but also highlights the fundamental flaw with the system.

[digitalErich]

The upcoming WoW expansion's version of world PvP might be something to keep an eye on. Basically, one entire zone is PvP. So even on a PvE server, if you go into that zone you're flagged. In my mind this system is almost perfect as it relates to the issues I have with WoW's current state of PvP, but I'll have to wait and see.

[Lima Beans]

Well perfect MMO in general, or for me personally.

For my personally the perfect MMO would be impossible to solo in, and it would have an amazing matchmaking system. I could log on and find a group of people to play with instantly and the encounters would be interesting and require teamwork and strategy.

[Wraith]

For the class system, I really like what FFXI did, in that you can have a main job, subjob (with access to your subjob's abilities at half the level of your main job), and ability to change your main and subjob whenever you like (in most towns). There are certainly improvements that could be made to this system, as it ends up favoring one or two choice subjobs for each main job, as many combos just aren't worth using, but the flexibility is certainly a plus.

Have any MMOs solved the inventory problem, without either making it limitless or doing away with inventory entirely? While I understand why you don't want to have characters just carrying an infinite number of items, inventory management just isn't fun.

[midrael]

Something that I've always thought was an intriguing idea, but never implemented correctly, was the concept of player driven quests. I recall an attempt at this being made in Star Wars Galaxies, but I don't think it was pulled off well. I'm not even sure of the sort of system that would have to be put in place to get it to work, but the idea of player driven content supplementing the developer created content appeals to me.

I'm imagining some sort of system where the quest/mission creator chooses a quest from a number of available options, adds the reward to the system at the time of quest creation (so they can't screw the person that completes the quest), and then makes it available through some sort of mission board system or in-world equivalent. I suppose the difficulty would be in making such a system appeal to the players so that they create the quests to begin with.

Some quests obviously probably adhere to the system well enough. Fetch me x number of this so I can complete my mission/crafting/whatever, and I'll pay out x amount of gold. But, that's pretty well done just with an auction house. Maybe a courier system could be done this way, or a bounty system in in a pvp world. Maybe if the game has some sort of faction or player owned property system, a patrol quest would be useful. The game might even spawn attacks on the one that took on the patrol quest. I suppose a benefit would have to be provided for making sure one's property was patrolled.

Okay, I think I'm getting off topic. :D
/end random conceptualizing

[Heretic Machine]

Something that I've always thought was an intriguing idea, but never implemented correctly, was the concept of player driven quests. I recall an attempt at this being made in Star Wars Galaxies, but I don't think it was pulled off well. I'm not even sure of the sort of system that would have to be put in place to get it to work, but the idea of player driven content supplementing the developer created content appeals to me.

I'm imagining some sort of system where the quest/mission creator chooses a quest from a number of available options, adds the reward to the system at the time of quest creation (so they can't screw the person that completes the quest), and then makes it available through some sort of mission board system or in-world equivalent. I suppose the difficulty would be in making such a system appeal to the players so that they create the quests to begin with.

Some quests obviously probably adhere to the system well enough. Fetch me x number of this so I can complete my mission/crafting/whatever, and I'll pay out x amount of gold. But, that's pretty well done just with an auction house. Maybe a courier system could be done this way, or a bounty system in in a pvp world. Maybe if the game has some sort of faction or player owned property system, a patrol quest would be useful. The game might even spawn attacks on the one that took on the patrol quest. I suppose a benefit would have to be provided for making sure one's property was patrolled.

Okay, I think I'm getting off topic. :D
/end random conceptualizing

Player-made quests are an upcoming feature of City of Heroes/Villains. We aren't sure when it's coming, exactly, but it was something that Positron talked about in a statement he made on the fourth anniversary last month.