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I’ve had an idea about how a MMO could work for awhile. I have a hard time articulating it something shorter than a novel, but I would like to share it here and see what people think.

I’m thinking of a pretty typical MMORPG setting so I’m going to use Lord of the Rings for my example.

The idea is to make the game world completely dynamic and full of intelligent NPCs, belonging to various factions, who work together with other NPCs in their faction to achieve their faction’s goals. Those NPCs would be able to bring about real, permanent change to the game world, and be able to be permanently killed. For instance, Sauron and all his orcs would be a faction whose goal is world domination. The elves would be a faction whose goal is to not be taken over by Sauron and stop him at any cost. The dwarves while interested in not being killed by Sauron are also interested in taking Moria back from the evils that dwell in it. Hobbits want to eat a lot. Players would be independent and could aid any faction they desired, but they would be incentivized to help out against Sauron and his minions.

The key part to making the game interesting would be that nothing in the game would be static. If Sauron beseiged Minas Tirth and succeeded in razing the city to the ground and killed Legolas, Gandalf, and Gimili in the process, then Minas Tirth would be in ruins, and those heroes would be dead. It would not just be some special event the world would reset in a few hours so the players could try again, it would be a permanent change in the world. If Smog is able to be kiilled, he’s gone for good. He doesn’t respawn once a week.

Since change is permanent, the game would then basically have win conditions and loss conditions. The player base will be able to win or lose as a group. If Sauron is victorious in taking over Middle Earth, then the game restarts in another Age (kinda like how Sauron is not the first ultimate bad guy in Middle Earth). When the game restarts, the ultimate bad guy is at it again, and the players will hopefully have better luck the second time around. It would kinda be like a WoW sized DOTA game.

That’s the main idea. What do you guys think? Would that be cool? Would it be lame? What do you think problems with a game like this would be? I know WoW and other MMOs have instanced boss areas so that everyone can see the content. My opinion is that players would be ok with possibly missing a major event that if they were able to make a real impact in the game world when they were playing.

I think this is a good idea and I don't remember coming across such a thing in a game before. Introducing permanent changes to the game world by the act of players/NPCs and creating temporarily accessible content that if a player missed it, it will be missed for good could be quite cool if done right. But, the permanent changes shouldn't be too major that might cause players to lose interest on the game. I would also like to hear what others think about this idea.

There was a game called Horizons (now called Istaria) that had something close to what you describe. There were events where players had to get together and build something ( a mine, a bridge, a machine, etc). At the conclusion of that, something new happened. A new area of the world was accessible, a new race was playable, something like that. The cool thing was that each server could choose to complete or not complete these tasks, so you had some servers where you could play some races and others where you couldn't.

It was a very interesting concept, but their implementation left a lot to be desired.

They also had the concept of creatures attacking player cities. You could be in one part of the world and see a broadcast message that the Avatar of Pain was attacking Harro! You could rush to their defense, or you could ignore it. Unfortunately, there was not consequence if you ignored it, so everyone did

Some games have toyed with the concept of having NPCs attack player-build cities and housing, but that's universally disliked by most players as the attacks could happen when you weren't online and no way to defend yourself, etc.

I really like the idea of a living changing world. I just haven't seen a really good example of it yet

OldRod wrote:I really like the idea of a living changing world. I just haven't seen a really good example of it yet

I agree. I like the idea as well, look into A Tale In The Desert. That is a living changing world, albeit it is player driven by players building the structures and what not. I remember beta testing this game, and it was okay. For me it lacked combat, which I like to do every once in a while to relax when I don't want to do anything else. Might not be so active as it once was.

I actually like this a lot, and I've really wanted to do something like this with my own endeavors.

My main complaint as a player would be, that if I take a vacation, or get busy at work and can't play for a few months I have a lot of reading to do just to catch up on my recreational activity.

One of my go-to games when I want to grind is runescape, and I've been playing for 11 years on and off because I can go back, and I know everything is going to be (relatively) the same. I think there would have to be some major contemplation on how far world changes can go, what events and outside measures can constitute a world change, and how you are going to log and present new data to users each time they log on.

That said, I'm intrigued...

This sounds like a nightmare to code.
:challenge accepted.png:

This does reminds me of a tail about an early MMOs. Can't remember what game it was.

They created an ecosystem (sort of) were if there was a lot of X creature then there would be less Y, ect.

What they did not realize is that the players would end up killing off everything tell there was nothing left.

Other then that.

indiewhite wrote: That said, I'm intrigued...

I think an MMO with a win condition and server resets would be interesting. Shadowbane would have a set of new servers about every 8 or so months for a while and some long running servers. I recall there was a group of players who would stay on the long running server (Mourning) another group that would play on the newer servers. Myself and many many others enjoyed the newer servers and that excitement of all the different new possibilities a new server creates.


Procedural mob spawning and unique non respawning NPC's is also a cool idea. I believe Ultima online had a procedural spawn code for some mobs polar bears in particular believe and at one point an epic amount of them spawned and they zerg rushed a few towns. Its like MMO history.

There have not been a ton of threads made in this section, so I know it was decently close to the top, but this is an old thread (about 6 months ago)