Setting - subject to change

[Mist]

I had another idea. How about a game thats just an absolute killfest. Lots of low poly models, which would be easy for artists and easy on graphics cards in whatever mediocre graphics engine these middlewear packages use. Tons of slaughtering/blowing up huge numbers of enemies who drop gobs of randomly generated loot/cash/salvagable crafting shit, etc. An MMO devoted to absolutely mindless oldschool fun.

Could be any setting really, but I think spaceships would be good. Something that plays like an old school top down space shooter like Raptor/Tyrian (but with full range of motion like say Asteroids) meets Diablo. With such a simplified graphics and control system, more time could be spent coding game systems and mechanics. PvP/area control/manufacturing could be as complex as EVE even, or even moreso, but the actual combat elements would be fast paced top down 2D shooter style.

[AngryGerbil]

The MMO setting I've always wanted to see is well the modern one. Not the past, not the future....now.

*shrug*

[Vatoreus]

I like the Chrono Trigger-esque idea a lot. If we were to do that, what would the "lobby" world's time be?

Also, we have to consider what kind of races we want in the game. I suggest going with a few "mainstream" ideas for races, but altering them to fit our world and also going with some cool variant races. I can flip through a few D&D monster manuals to see what would be some cool humanoids (since they've pretty much thought up every imaginable creature.)

[Requiem]

I have two ideas that I will help to implement the datasources for.

1) A room you can walk into to observe the traffic of the Uberguilds Network live. Picture a darkened room in a temple or futuristic setting with circles on the ground and lines connecting them all that represent each site, and particles spiraling up off of them and going between them to indicate page views and referals.

2) Some sort of virtual navigation of forums. Maybe a huge complex with wings for each site, rooms for each forum(screenshots, mmo general discussion, etc) and big screens that you can interact with for different threads that move by themselves and shuffle their order around when people post on them or something.

[Ninajrr]

Well with the Chrono Trigger idea I was mostly referring to the "End of Time" as the hubworld (as it was in CT). I guess it was considered to be the end (ie: infinity time, thats how it was on the Epoch's "timometer"), but it just as well could be considered the beginning of time. Time paradoxes are so fun!



Basically, a rather simple place that serves its purpose as a hub between worlds/times. Though it could be expanded to be a City at the End of/Lost in/Lost From Time, or a multitude of different ideas.

Also on a different note: I think that the biggest advantage to a time-based MMO is that you can expand the game to include many genres, but not have a need to include multiple game-play types. Also, art styles can transcend timelines, to ellude to one universe, or not, allowing for multiple art styles suggestioning the timelines do not necessarily exist in the same universe (Kingdom Heartsish).

(ps, how do I attach images as opposed to the image link I used?)

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by Mist

I had another idea. How about a game thats just an absolute killfest. Lots of low poly models, which would be easy for artists and easy on graphics cards in whatever mediocre graphics engine these middlewear packages use. Tons of slaughtering/blowing up huge numbers of enemies who drop gobs of randomly generated loot/cash/salvagable crafting shit, etc. An MMO devoted to absolutely mindless oldschool fun.

Nothing is stopping you from doing this within the Uberworlds title. It's just a matter of changing the ruleset the engine is using. People made isometric shoot-um up SmashTV type games from the HL2 engine. Personally I was hoping to make a co-op schmup (shoot-um-up gradius) type area. No reason we can't have mini-games attached.

I have two ideas that I will help to implement the datasources for.

1) A room you can walk into to observe the traffic of the Uberguilds Network live. Picture a darkened room in a temple or futuristic setting with circles on the ground and lines connecting them all that represent each site, and particles spiraling up off of them and going between them to indicate page views and referals.

2) Some sort of virtual navigation of forums. Maybe a huge complex with wings for each site, rooms for each forum(screenshots, mmo general discussion, etc) and big screens that you can interact with for different threads that move by themselves and shuffle their order around when people post on them or something.

Something I found interesting was the intergration of a game and an OS. They did this with the .hack series of games and in the anime. More or less imagine if Microsoft made an MMO that was fully intergrated with Windows. In-game mail would come to your email box and you could post auctions and stuff from your desktop.

The main goal for any MMO is for customer retention. For my theory, it's to have your customer using your product 24x7, not just to "play". Games can offer more then just PVE/PVP and Raiding. You'll eventually get tired of it and leave. If you can offer more then that, if you can keep your customer using your product, even if it's not completely related to the game, you can keep them forever. I think one of the Korean MMOs was starting to do this. They had a mobile version of their MMO that all you did was farm gold, so even if you were away from home, on the bus or train, you'd still be using their product.

[Ahnkosis]

I like Zarcath's ideas of basically mini-games. Mini games that you can progress in and have it affect the "main game".

Also, can we get some sort of running FAQ sticky, that is edited by the mod? That way, important discussion items/things decided on are easier to find for everyone?

Whatever the setting / theme is, I would like to see new direction in terms of gear/equipment/items.

For most MMO's out there, the system is flawed.

The entire concept of NoDrop / Soulbound items is crap. The notion that you underwent a grueling quest to obtain a Legendary sword that you can never drop/trade/sell/dispose of is unrealistic. On the flip side, being able to give the sword to a level 1 person is game-breaking in some ways.

Here is my overall proposal for an gear system.

1 - All items are tradeable. From your newbie food, to the armor you take from the current "last boss" of the game, it will all be tradeable.

2 - Tiers of items. Where some items are marked Legendary/Artifact/Epic/Rare/Uncommon/Common/etc., you can use this classification to keep one player from amassing all of the Legendary Items persay. Like a Paladin in AD&D, you can impose a limit on the number of certain items that a player can have and use at one time...say for instance:

Legendary / Artifact - One Item
Very Rare - Two Items
Rare - Four Items
Uncommon - Five Items
Common - No limit

If a player wants to get another Rare Item, but already has his limit of 4 Rare items, he'd have to give up 1 Rare item to get it. These measures will help the player driven economy in that a player cannot amass a wealth of Rare items to become the most "uber" player around and dominate all the others, he will still have to exercise skill and caution in his decisions.

Combining those two things together would make balancing easier. Instead of assuming that players will have the best of all available gear, you can assume that they will have a somewhat "standard" gear profile of Rare/Uncommon gear, allowing the Very Rare and Legendary gear to give the player the slight boosts above the norm that they are expected to give.

This is probably a good discussion for another thread, but I just wanted to get it out there.

[Agonizing]

I really would like to see a old Western style mmo.

I was following Priest MMO which never made it here.


I like the idea of a Horror Western Style MMO. Something along those lines would be different and quite fun.

As I get time I'll post my ideas on a Fantasy and Western style setting.

[Mist]

Should make a River City Ransom style MMO. :P

[Lhon]

Originally Posted by Faille

Rather then trying to decide upon a setting or theme for the project, I figure the best option is just to have a central zone, or few zones, that have portals leading to other worlds that will form mini mmos. This will allow people to build their fantasy worlds, their post apoc worlds, etc, though its not quite free form since they will need to conform to the central rules that will allow players to move between the worlds.

Doesn't this kind of contradict the mission statement?

The goal is to allow people with interesting in creating an mmo to contribute to the project at their own pace, without the huge workload of trying to make it all themselves.

It seems like the portal idea will end up creating the huge workload of everyone trying to make it all themselves for each mini-mmo. I'd rather encourage cooperative development than allow everyone to splinter to their own world.

[Mist]

Yeah, it really seems the direction of the project is already getting lost before it even found itself. Everyone wants their own little MMO with its own mechanics and everything, the idea is to actually collectively make 1 MMO, and then distribute content generation over the various worlds.

[Vatoreus]

The portal system seems like a really good idea. Everyone having their ideas is a good thing. The thing that needs to happen is people need to set aside their ideas for now, keep them logged to bring back into light when appropriate, and focus on creating a good base world, the Lobby world it would seem.

[Mist]

We don't even have a gameplay type yet.

[Usha Starchild]

A world where women rule and men are all slaves on leashes and are fighting for their freedom.

or

we could just add DDR pad support and have dance offs in the equivilant or iron forge.

Anyway, this seems like a good idea on paper but its gonna take alot of work for the project to come together. Firefox did it, an MMO is gonna be a alot tougher. I wish yo luck though, would be really cool to see you pull it off.

I envison everyone hopping on board and 90% losing interest after a few months, the remaining 10% will form a solid core and plug away at it until 2010 when the first beta is released. Blizzards employees will defect and join the team and work for red bull and burritos and EA will sign up for in game ad's.

[Faille]

Originally Posted by Usha Starchild

A world where women rule and men are all slaves on leashes and are fighting for their freedom.

or

we could just add DDR pad support and have dance offs in the equivilant or iron forge.

Anyway, this seems like a good idea on paper but its gonna take alot of work for the project to come together. Firefox did it, an MMO is gonna be a alot tougher. I wish yo luck though, would be really cool to see you pull it off.

I envison everyone hopping on board and 90% losing interest after a few months, the remaining 10% will form a solid core and plug away at it until 2010 when the first beta is released. Blizzards employees will defect and join the team and work for red bull and burritos and EA will sign up for in game ad's.

/pizza is one of the first features I want to implement.