Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpy Old Fart  1) Do not *EVER*, fucking *EVER EVER EVER* make that god damned "You have been afflicted by Dazed." a part of any MMORPG ever again. Ever. We all fucking hate it. Some douchebag higher-level dev at Blizzard that was one of those power-mad 15 year old D&D DMs that liked killing his players to get a hard-on insists on this stupid thing being kept in the game, even though I'm sure every other employee there hates his guts (I know the Blizzard forum mods do a "/sigh, yes we know it's fucking stupid, but this dev will take his toys and go home if we remove Dazed from the game" every time it's posted about).
2) Do copy the Vanguard spellcasting sytems, with mana usage, channeling, ability to cast while moving (at a reduced rate), etc. If you use anything even approaching the horrid DAoC spell-casting system, we'll trash your game on every game forum ever made until it dies.
3) Copy and improve the Vanguard diplomacy system.
4) Do not use the retarded, simplistic, lazy-assed system of "98% of all mobs in the world are auto-aggro on players" shit that WoW has. And for those mobs that would naturally be aggro to players, don't make it another retarded, simplistic, lazy-assed system basing aggro distance solely on level difference between the NPC and PC.
5) Do use the queueing of hotkey commands that EQ2 has.
6) Do not have any "auto-invisible", non-spellcaster classes in your game. "Stealth" can be implemented a lot better these days than allowing some "rogue" class to just go *POOF* in the middle of a grassy field at high noon.
7) No crowd control spells in PvP that last longer than about 10 seconds. Obviously, having your character mezzed/stunned in DAoC RvR for 2 minutes at a time was a key factor in them losing tens of thousands of subscribers. So, don't do it.
8) Spend a lot of time making sure the 87% of your playerbase that wants to make mangina characters will be happy. This includes hot-looking faces, hair, animated boob bouncing, etc. This one is important. I mean, look at Lineage 2. What does it offer other than DE boob bounce and HE panty shots? That's right, nothing. |
I like alot of that, let me attempt to throw myself under the bus with some ideas as well.
1. Look at what UO and EQ did right and improve on it with the technology now available, regardless of what people bitch and fight about, the dungeon system in EQ worked, and forced people to know how to play their class. Being able to "grind" in dungeons with guildies/groups/friends for hours as an option is always better than being forced to do quests of "kill 10 of x and come to me!" or collect x, y, z and bring it back.
2. Do not reward players with high end items for doing nothing other than spending time in a pvp zone. This is just flat out a bad idea. Instead im sure most people who would rather do something a long the lines of a long *in depth* quest line to receieve items. Also, make those said items somewhat compareable to high end raid items, that way your taking care of weekend warrior casual joe, and the hardcore raider group wont complain that the solo quests epic items are better than their "dedicated hardcore" raid style.
3. Do not hire a female to be your relay to the playerbase. Daoc tried that with sonya..and yeah we all know how that worked, she didnt know any of the games forumlas to improve character progression based on items and item stats. She also was proven unable to go find someone who could give her the answer either.
4. Dont post alpha/beta screenshots of your game of things you will never actually see in the game. Instead, invite members from a certain group that you can rely on to give you a honest un-fan boi opinion, regardless of how harsh it may be at times.
5. Hire a "live" team. This team would be in charge of all in game class/quest/encounter situations, these people should know more about the game than you do, the ins and outs as well as able to provide an abundance of information to the people who really get into character progression to mathematically make their toon superior.
6. As we all know, servers will crash, players will be pissy hot fixes will be needed etc, but whatever you do COMMUNICATE IMMEDIATLY to your player base why their game isnt working and give a accurate eta hell better yet, give a time that exceeds what your actually thinking it will take, that way when they are running back up your customers are happy because they think its early...it amazes me that this isnt done. Nothing is more frustrating than a server crash and no information from the company on what happened.
7. Make a game that is cutting edge graphics wise....but not over the top melt your pc. As Im sure you know, pc enthusiasts are rarely the hard core gamers, so keep that in mind when you make a game. Dont make it crap looking like wow, but dont melt processors like vg did. Most casual gamers are jobless wonders who dont upgrade every 6 months.
I could go on for hours now that I am thinking about it , but if your interested in more let me know and Ill spare everyone else the forum space :P.
