Best features of past games

[Vllad]

Dustie,

It is the gathering part that most games get crafting wrong.

The key to crafting is the resourses not the gathering.

We want crafting to create pvp. To create pvp we need to create battles over resourses. Screw putting nodes all over the world where anyone can run around and gather them.

You tie the resourses into locations and the factions that control the resourses. Mines, Farming Fields, Orchards, Wineries, Slaughter houses etc.

As Slamz pointed out above if you are a blacksmith you can either help a faction build or run its mine in order to get access to the resourses or you have to raid it to take the resourses. Maybe a guild itself is given permission to run their own resourse center with in what ever is available with any given faction.

The reason for pvp is to control resourses. You need resourses to help with factions, or help your crafters keep you equiped. Especially since equipment breaks permantly.

Let the game do the gathering, let the players worry about trying to get a hold of resourses. They can buy them, raid for them or help produce buildings to generate them.

If you fix the gathering piece you will dump most of repeditive crap. That is not to say you should get rid of the repetitive pieces of generating finished products. If you are a blacksmith you will probably end up repairing a lot of crap or producing your best pieces. Can't be helped. Don't be a Blacksmith then.


Vllad

[Dustie]

I think I would simply tie gear into the economy and make it come from resources, not unlike shipbuilding in POTBS -- your armor is your ship. Whenever you lose it, you have to buy a new one. Some will be common as dirt and very affordable, others will be better but more costly to produce in time and resources. If your town has access to bamboo, you can make bamboo armor all day long, very cheap, very quick to produce, but not overly effective stuff. If you've got access to mithril, you can make mithril armor, very effective but it represents a lot of work to replace. It's not necessarily "expensive" in the literal sense. It's actually free. You just set up a mine and it digs it up for you. But it may be expensive in the sense that mithril mines work really slowly, so that breastplate may represent 3 real-life days of letting the mine run. If you're losing it faster than the mine is replacing it, you'll have to start wearing something else until your supplies build back up.


So there is a sense of investment, and a sense of loss, but replacing lost gear is a question of real-time hours as automated mining operations do their thing. You wouldn't actually have to go out and farm your own mithril. You'd build the mine and wait. Or pay/trade for it.


SWG's economy was very similar to this.

Exactly. Let the repetitive and time consuming part (building up labor hours and extracting resources) be non-repetitive and time consuming. Don't make players stand there and do something for 3 days (i.e. build up labor by clicking buttons over and over).

I agree, SWG (with factories and autonomous resource extractors) and POBS did this right IMO. In SWG, you had your mineral extractor running all day. You only stopped by and picked up the resources every so often and supplied the thing with power. This ties into Griz's point. While you didn't need to sit and press "g" every 30 seconds to extract minerals, you still had to run out to the mineral extractor, or run out to a certain player city to get a certain item etc so it brought people together. Certain player cities had the best armor, while others had the best guns etc.

[Dustie]

I understand the point about making loot from resources, but I think there are too many players who really don't care about, or want to bother with, resource gathering or crafting. I'm one of those people. I love to get out there and PvP, PvE, explore the world, etc. I'd rather farm mobs all night and kill players to get cash to turn around and buy items from others, than make them myself.

In a game like PotBS, I remember I would set up for a Friday night of high seas sailing and PvPing, only to lose three ships in the first hour, and then spend the rest of the night sailing from port to port, gathering resources, buying, building, etc., and it just became horribly boring. One hour of action for four hours of gathering and crafting (or so it felt).

I think games that are gathering and crafting-heavy don't do as well as those that are more activity/action oriented. I would gladly camp Lower Guk for 24 hours for a shot at an FBSS, but spend 24 hours gathering and crafting to make a similar item? Next game. Too much crafting equates to too much work, and not enough fun.

What if you had had the ability to trade (sell) your POBS production to other players? What if an economic minded player could get 90% of his needed resources from putting some time into his econ game and 10% from going out into the world and gathering/killing things whereas a non-econ player could do the opposite. Since he just sells his labor (with no value added) he gets, say 50% of his needed resources from econ and needs to go out into the world and gather/kill for the other 50%?

[Dustie]

Dustie,

It is the gathering part that most games get crafting wrong.

The key to crafting is the resourses not the gathering.

We want crafting to create pvp. To create pvp we need to create battles over resourses. Screw putting nodes all over the world where anyone can run around and gather them.

You tie the resourses into locations and the factions that control the resourses. Mines, Farming Fields, Orchards, Wineries, Slaughter houses etc.

Are you thinking of a tweaked POBS style with conquerable islands having different resources?

As Slamz pointed out above if you are a blacksmith you can either help a faction build or run its mine in order to get access to the resourses or you have to raid it to take the resourses. Maybe a guild itself is given permission to run their own resourse center with in what ever is available with any given faction.

The reason for pvp is to control resourses. You need resourses to help with factions, or help your crafters keep you equiped. Especially since equipment breaks permantly.

Let the game do the gathering, let the players worry about trying to get a hold of resourses. They can buy them, raid for them or help produce buildings to generate them.

If you fix the gathering piece you will dump most of repeditive crap. That is not to say you should get rid of the repetitive pieces of generating finished products. If you are a blacksmith you will probably end up repairing a lot of crap or producing your best pieces. Can't be helped. Don't be a Blacksmith then.


Vllad

Can't the blacksmith have a SWG style factory? Then, he comes up with a good recipe for a breastplate, loads the template into his factory, and simply cranks them out by adding power and resources.

[grizzle]

What if you had had the ability to trade (sell) your POBS production to other players? What if an economic minded player could get 90% of his needed resources from putting some time into his econ game and 10% from going out into the world and gathering/killing things whereas a non-econ player could do the opposite. Since he just sells his labor (with no value added) he gets, say 50% of his needed resources from econ and needs to go out into the world and gather/kill for the other 50%?

Honestly, it's too much number crunching and resource strategy-figuring-out. It's also a mindset, really. From my previous example, spending 24 hours in a hard-fought and hard-won mob camp, and eventually earning an FBSS is like a badge of honor. When someone views my toon's gear they will think, "Holy crap, that dude has an FBSS! He went through hell and back to get it!" Buying gear just doesn't have that same feel when wearing it, especially since, because it is crafted, everyone and their mother can easily have that same Shiny Belt for the low, low price of $29.99.

Another drawback to a craft-heavy game, with loot-light drops, is that the crafters start charging exhorbitant prices for everything, and those of us combat focused players wind up either farming all our time away to afford the gear, or breaking down and wasting time crafting just to make the gear cheaply ourselves.

I would just rather fight for the gear, and feel like I really earned it.

[Alio]

As I was saying before, we need a way to let you dick-wave without sporting your fancy gear with crazy bonuses.

Theres a mechanism out there that will have some guy go, Wow, that dude is crazy cool ....

The best way is through player recognition and story telling, as in,

"He just took on 50 Green Ninjas from Torlac.... and won."

Better than.... "Wow, that guy has spent 50 hours in instance C. He has a lot of time on his hands"

[1000xZero]

Z-Axis: Look at EQ2 which was better than EQ. The ability to float down on people at a Fae/Arasai or Safe Fall is huge.

Language Learning/Cross Channel chat: One of the things I miss the most.

No Auction House: Awesome. Makes playing a Trader/Crafter a viable option.

Bind Points: This is an overlooked ability. I think having bind "stones" in cities for anyone but allow a certain class the ability to people anywhere that we would choose(aka maybe not in dungeons but outside OK).

Respawn: Multiple point respawn like Bind Point and 1 other location usually safe from bind rush/cc'ing

Faction: Guards killing PCs with less than neutral faction

[Slamz]

I have problems with rare/unique loot. We'd have to think of a way to do it in a large, randomly generated "living world" scenario. We don't want to go around populating individual dungeons with individual items, IMO, because I think that defeats the true focus of the game (at least as I envision it).

However, maybe something like...

Enchantments are a rare commodity. To make them, you have to have an enchanter with enchantment skill and access to a variety of rare components. Quality enchantments will basically be out of reach of solo crafters, but crafters who are part of a strong faction and have access to that faction's resources have a shot.

NPC factions will tend to have their own NPC enchanters, subject to the same rules as players. They will automatically take resources from the faction stockpile, make an enchantment and apply it to some gear in the faction warehouse (which may be picked up to wear by NPCs or put on the vendor for sale, depending). The longer that particular NPC enchanter lives, the more enchantments he creates, the higher his skill becomes and the better his enchantments become.


So you come across the Red Court Vampires, who have actually been alive since day 1 of game launch, with good access to resources, and their NPC enchanter is the most skilled enchanter in the entire world. Players CAN reach his level but none have because they haven't been doing it for as long with so much access to resources. So you kill his boss and that boss is wearing gear with "skill 800 enchantments" in world where most other people have "skill 300 enchantments" or worse. (But of course, you might end up having to try and assassinate the enchanter. Maybe his enchantments are so good, it's causing the Red Court Vampires to kick everyone'e ass.)



So the path is there for a crafter to make a rare, valuable item, just as good as any NPC drop, but they may simply not be as good at it as some NPCs, so going out and fighting can tend to get you some good stuff.

[Gnarnok]

I enjoyed the length of WoW Arena battles. If you were fighting a similarly geared/skilled team it might take some time to set up a win for you which took coordination, tact, execution and perfect timing at a certain level of play. It was always a great feeling to take 20-25 points from a team knowing they were ranked higher than you and you deserved it.

[Diggles]

We don't want to go around populating individual dungeons with individual items, IMO, because I think that defeats the true focus of the game (at least as I envision it)

rare drops should never be in the form of usable items. it should all be materials....so you either sell it to your team to use to make items for them, or sell it on the black market and the enemy could end up buying/using it....ala PotBS

(ie...some sort of reagent for wizards, a sought after plant herb for potions, a type of metal with unique properties)

If every material has a usually found in X Y Z conditions, then you can have it randomly respawn in locations that meet those conditions

Ie....plant herb only grows in extremely dry high altitudes, metal only found in limestone caves

[grizzle]

We don't want to go around populating individual dungeons with individual items, IMO, because I think that defeats the true focus of the game (at least as I envision it)

rare drops should never be in the form of usable items. it should all be materials....so you either sell it to your team to use to make items for them, or sell it on the black market and the enemy could end up buying/using it....ala PotBS

(ie...some sort of reagent for wizards, a sought after plant herb for potions, a type of metal with unique properties)

If every material has a usually found in X Y Z conditions, then you can have it randomly respawn in locations that meet those conditions

Ie....plant herb only grows in extremely dry high altitudes, metal only found in limestone caves

If you want to make an MMO for crafters and alienate adventurers/fighters/action oriented players, then I would agree with this. However, there are a ton of people who miss the old days of EQ, for example, with camped mobs and rare drops. These people view crafting and gathering as aspects of the game that are not fun, and when the game then tries to force those aspects on the player, where it is a necessity to spend three days (or any time, really) crafting just to go out and adventure in the world, then it becomes work and is unwanted.

[Vllad]

Are you thinking of a tweaked POBS style with conquerable islands having different resources?

Yes only it is tied to the factions directly. Forget however the ocean part and think of the Barrens in WoW. Think of that zone completely blank except a few huts scattered around the zone. While running across the zone you find Vampire Village1 which is just a few huts lying around. They give you quest to bring them wood and mud.

If you do this they will build a forge. If a forge is built a Vampire Village1 faction will have their own Blacksmith NPC appear. In return you get some faction with them.

Gain enough faction and you can use the Blacksmith and gain additional quest. This time you bring them other resourses to build a mine. Once the mine is built you gain more faction and now have access to resourses from that mine.

To prevent others from gaining access to the resourses you may try to pvp people that come around Vampire Village1.

If you gain enough maybe the leader of Vampire Village1 lets your guild build a mine.


The key part it to limit what is available in each village. Pretty soon the NPC Vampire Village1 will have to expand on it's own. They may ask for your help. They want to conquer the next village and turn them into Vampire Village1. This is how the NPC evolve.

Vampire Village1 conquers an entire string of villages up and down the Barrens. Pretty soon with good Vampire Village1 faction you now have access to all of their resourses.

Either way you will need to trasverse the world to collect goods but not in a manner that is repetitive but In a way that could be dangerous.

If PC's require the goods that Vampire Village1 produce and they don't have the faction to aquire it they could simply raid it and take what they need.

As long as you can keep the resourses flowing with those with the highest faction that should create enough tension. For example when people go up to get their alloted amount of Mithril their are only so many produced over a given time like POBS.
If Vampire Village1 is a slow producer and you are way back in line to receive your alloted amount you may just decide to raid it if a faction level that can increase your spot in line can not be attained.

The items they produced probably need to be controlled as well.
Something like a Village will only produced 1 finished product. A Town will produce 2, a City 3 etc.

It means you have a game with a lot of running around but thats what you want if you want pvp. You have to make people leave their cubby holes.

This should also create caravans if you treat this anything like POBS. You know what caravans create. PVP. Just make it so people that die in pvp drop their raw goods and wala, more pvp.



Vllad

[1000xZero]

Another thing to add to Slamz' enchantment idea is to add the idea of Eve blueprints to you idea of huts -> towns -> cities.

Blueprints for advance enchantments would fall from Boss mobs and then require the trade skill and economy to produce those advance but temporary enchantments. It would give temporary(and powerful) boosts but nothing permanent.

You would never lose the skill from the blueprint but you might not have the means to produce it if you don't have the economy or resources.

No item creep from Epic drops, good resource removal from the gameplay, and a way to engage tradeskillers.

[Diggles]

We don't want to go around populating individual dungeons with individual items, IMO, because I think that defeats the true focus of the game (at least as I envision it)

rare drops should never be in the form of usable items. it should all be materials....so you either sell it to your team to use to make items for them, or sell it on the black market and the enemy could end up buying/using it....ala PotBS

(ie...some sort of reagent for wizards, a sought after plant herb for potions, a type of metal with unique properties)

If every material has a usually found in X Y Z conditions, then you can have it randomly respawn in locations that meet those conditions

Ie....plant herb only grows in extremely dry high altitudes, metal only found in limestone caves

If you want to make an MMO for crafters and alienate adventurers/fighters/action oriented players, then I would agree with this. However, there are a ton of people who miss the old days of EQ, for example, with camped mobs and rare drops. These people view crafting and gathering as aspects of the game that are not fun, and when the game then tries to force those aspects on the player, where it is a necessity to spend three days (or any time, really) crafting just to go out and adventure in the world, then it becomes work and is unwanted.

I dont know ANYONE that enjoys camping spawns for drops.

The resources arent just going to be sitting there undefended.

Known resources can be claimed or guarded. Instead of camping the FBSS frog spawn for a week, your group slowly picks apart the defenses of a silver mine. Your explorers (ranger/rogue) scout the layout and troop movements, your fighters prepare the weapons they are going to need, your healers pack supplies to setup triage camps.

And when resources run dry they will respawn in new locations and have to be discovered.

[Diggles]

any new MMO game has to do voice chat.

Although I havent played on the server, there is a DoD:S server that runs a mic mod that only allows players within a certain proximity to hear what you are saying.

[1000xZero]

What about a Trade Skill that is called Exploration?

They would be able to discover new exploitable and ever changing resource locations.

[grizzle]

I dont know ANYONE that enjoys camping spawns for drops.

You know me, so that's one.

[Ulfen]

I dont know ANYONE that enjoys camping spawns for drops.

You know me, so that's one.

Me too, especially spawns that are heavily contested via PvP.

[Diggles]

I dont know ANYONE that enjoys camping spawns for drops.

You know me, so that's one.

Me too, especially spawns that are heavily contested via PvP.

So why are either of you even posting in this thread. Your dream games already exist

EQ, WoW, Linage 2

[Ulfen]

So why are either of you even posting in this thread. Your dream games already exist

EQ, WoW, Linage 2

This is the "Best features of past games" thread. That is a feature we like. It doesn't make them our dream games. WoW was one of the gayest games I ever played, I never tried Linage 2 and nobody still plays EQ.

[Veraphim]

I actually think SWG got the gathering/crafting the most correct of all the MMOs I've played.

Gathering
You didn't personally do the mining, you bought mining machines that were completely automated. You just had to visit them to collect the results every few days and move it to your storage. If you REALLY wanted to, you could go stand somewhere and dig in the dirt with your hands for some extra immediate resources, but the volume you could dig up yourself paled in comparison to what your mining stations could collect.

Crafting
You could make the items completely by yourself if you really wanted. Or, you could just make a blueprint, which was then loaded into a crafting station which would spit out crates of finished goods over time. You just had to make sure the station was stocked with the right resources.

Rewarding "The Crafter" vs non-crafter minded players
Each material had different stats - some metals had high conductivity but low melting point. Others would be extremely durable with high melting points, but had very low maleability. Different components of what you made would need high conductivity for electronics, or high durability for armoring or would need a high insulation rating.

In this way, the system still rewarded those that paid attention to their gathering. Someone like me could keep an eye on what I was mining so that I would always have the top of the line materials for making lenses for laser rifles, copper coils for power converters, etc. Someone like Grizzle could drop his mining machines anywhere and then just ignore them and still be contributing to the good of the "Team" (whether that's individual, guild, faction, etc). SWG even allowed you to assign other people access to your equipment, so Grizzle could let me take care of moving his material to storage for him.

Keeping 'em Employed
All items had durability and would eventually comepletely break. This is 100% necessary in any game with a player economy IMO. Items need to leave the game in order for crafters to have a reason to keep making more.

[Diggles]

I think you could do the same system for a fantasy game as well. How many npc miners do you want on your payroll.

Different types of npc hiringling races would have different advantages.

Strong half-orcs good in open air, plenty of room to use their muscle
Small races better in deeper underground mining

[Dustie]

This makes me think. What if you took questing as we know it, and flipped it up side down? What if NPCs came to players looking for quests. Players could then give them missions like "bring this wood back to my base and I'll reward you."

That would be interesting.

[Slamz]

This makes me think. What if you took questing as we know it, and flipped it up side down? What if NPCs came to players looking for quests. Players could then give them missions like "bring this wood back to my base and I'll reward you."

That's basically my old "NPC henchmen" idea.

Like every player has 5 NPC henchmen (or more likely a variable number depending on something-or-another). These henchmen exist in the world 24/7 and do whatever you want. Mining, guarding, running supplies from one location to another, etc.

"Use NPCs to take the tedium out of gameplay" is one of my core requirements for a theoretical game. Anything that NEEDS to be done but is decidedly boring to do can be handled by NPCs.


But rather than actually assigning you a henchmen, we could take your idea and basically make it to where you negotiate with NPCs in towns to go do stuff. You select from a list what you want them to do:
"I want you to gather ___ logs of wood from [drop down list of nearby forests] and bring them to [drop down list of depots you own within range of the selected forest]."

The NPC will then offer to do it for a price based on distance, work, danger and how much they like you. Asking an NPC to help you kill the dwarf king might cost more than asking him to walk 10 feet outside town and chop down a bunch of trees. You might even have faction with individual NPCs such that you build up a rapport and they're willing to do more for less money, provided nobody kills them overnight. (And once they like you enough they may refuse to talk to anyone else for some time after their last job, in case you want to give them more work. Or maybe they'll say, "Well, I was kind of waiting for Slamz to come back, but I'll do this for you if you throw in another 10 silver.")




If nothing else, the fundamental thing we're establishing with this forum is that these games could be a lot cooler if developers would spend some time thinking about ways to make NPCs more involved and more interactive. They shouldn't just stand there for 6 years giving out the "fix the windmill" quest.

[Dustie]

I think we really need to model some of these ideas. I wish there was a tool that allowed us to run some models given some parameters.