MMO with Hacking Theme

[Zarcath]

Well I had a huge post written up and this shit computer decided to log me off of the forums and I lost it.

Basically

The game is built from the ground up with a number of `open source` code tiers (lets say 10 for now). Each tier gives you access to different sets of variables you can alter in the world. Lowest levels could alter your spells or weapon damage. Mid-tier you could influence instances your group enters, make monsters easier/harder, better loot chances, etc. At the highest levels you`d be able to make some permenant changes to the world.

You can hack anything from level 1, but when you view the `open source` code, its all encrypted and if you fuck with it without knowing which variable is what, you could end up ruining your hack attempt (item destroyed, cast time increased, etc), or you could end up with a black mark on your account, or killed.

As you level, quest, raid, you gain decrypters. Decrypters make sense of the `open source` code. You can get special decrypters that will give you more power over what you`re hacking or consumables that let you insert new variable sets.

Hacking will take time. Maybe have it take time to download the `open code` and then time to decrypt and then time to alter and upload. The time it takes to do all of this would depend on what you`re trying to hack, your items, skills, etc. All of the actual wait time involved would happen in the background. You can still play normally while this is going on, once you`ve done the actual work part.

So it might take 1 minute to fully hack a buff for an hour to give +20 more hp or it could take you 10 minutes to hack the zone so it thinks you didn`t really die. If you want to hack the newbie zone so all bunnies are level 100 and are kos it might take you 10 hours of channeled time. If you log out, you cancel your attempts. This hack time is designed to give other players time to stop you, and in-game support time to track you down and foil your plans.

If you`ve ever watched or player .hack you might get an idea of what i`m going for here.

Every aspect of the game would be designed to be soft-hacked. You want the chair in your instanced house to be purple? alright, 1 minute of hacking. You want a chair in the open world to be purple? alright, 3 hours. You want your chair to be pink with stripes but its not in the variable list? find a consumable that allows you to insert it into the code. There would be some world events that have major impact that players could hack. Like players could hack what the last boss is vulenerable to, and each server the boss would have a different vulnerability. One might be vulnerable to swords, the next might be vulnerable to wet noodles. Now players on ServerB have to find wet noddles and hack it so it has an attack/delay and then hack it so the dmg is significant enough.

The hard-code would never be at risk. Players might be able to create new uber weapons or /kill mobs or even crash a zone, but it would never create a griefing situation to other players. If you /kill an announcement/bounty is made and you`re open game for pvp. You can only /kill in certain zones or in your instance only. If you crash a zone, it just forces players into a different zone. The server could never be crashed. Players would never be forced into death loops or lose their corpses.

So thats the gist of what I recall from my original post.

edit: you could tie this in to a time-travel-esque game. New expansions would be released and a player might get a new consumable that lets him alter his portal spell and suddenly he finds himself in a new time period.

[Grave]

So what would the hacking gameplay itself be like? You give a timeframe of like 3 hours for hacking a chair in the world - what type of gameplay would make someone want to put 3 hours of time into it?

For example, if it was connect the pipes from Bioshock, I'd say fuck it. But I know that isn't what you have in mind at all.

Edit: Oh, and I think the idea itself is really interesting, especially when you reminded me of .hack. If it was set like in a Matrix type world or one like .hack where players knew they were inside a game, and desired to manipulate things around them, I think that would be a really interesting/fun enviroment.

[OhSeven]

After playing many MMO's over the years I would be cautious of letting players make lasting changes to the game world.

What would stop say the top 20-30 'strongest' people from getting together and making the game virtually unplayable for anyone but them?

[Deris]

Originally Posted by OhSeven

After playing many MMO's over the years I would be cautious of letting players make lasting changes to the game world.

What would stop say the top 20-30 'strongest' people from getting together and making the game virtually unplayable for anyone but them?

Why not? Just make it limited in scope like Eve as to how much a player can control. Bam - instant content, bad guys made via players.

[Linbog]

Might be cool if it was kinda progress quest-ish where you don't actually control your character and you just hack stuff in the world around it to make sure he survives... so I guess like dungeon keeper sorta.

[Punko]

I'd mock its players.

[Punko]

ps. Your idea sounds a whole lot like the matrix, being able to affect your virtual surroundings and all. That didn't turn out huge I believe.

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by Grave

So what would the hacking gameplay itself be like? You give a timeframe of like 3 hours for hacking a chair in the world - what type of gameplay would make someone want to put 3 hours of time into it?

For example, if it was connect the pipes from Bioshock, I'd say fuck it. But I know that isn't what you have in mind at all.

Edit: Oh, and I think the idea itself is really interesting, especially when you reminded me of .hack. If it was set like in a Matrix type world or one like .hack where players knew they were inside a game, and desired to manipulate things around them, I think that would be a really interesting/fun enviroment.

You`re not actually doing active hacking for 3 hours. And it wouldnt be some bullshit pipe hacking either. Maybe different mini-games for the different steps that you need to pass. I had actually envisioned people retyping code and compiling/uploading to get their desired effect.

Long-term effects in-game wouldn`t be drastic, and soft rollbacks would be a common place event. Like the server `restores the local code` and any changes made are reversed. So those level 100 rabbits that were raping noobs for the last hour are now back to normal. If the hacker persists and keeps reupping the hack, it just gives other players time to come and fuck him up.

I never played the Matrix but afaih, the storyline/events were great but the actual combat and content ate dick.

Hacking is basically like a spellcasting system. Like the old Asheron Call magic system and like Anarchy Online`s buff stacking to equip better items. Except it`s more localized instead of global. Also with instances it would be easy to give players unimaginable power without destroying the game experience for other players.