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 living the dream since March 16, 2006 |
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The closest thing I've seen to such a game would be the first Neverwinter Nights, where one could play on a player-crafted online server with at top 60 players divided between factions. We called those "Persistent Worlds", the most interesting amongst them being servers where you had to roleplay. Each character had his own storyline, his own place in the world, and partaked in war and negociations, sometimes temporary alliances with other factions depending on their respective interests. A team of invisible "game masters" made sure that everybody played fair (because the NWN engine had bugs and limitations, despite the creative freedom its editor offered).
I could play on such a server for hours and hours and not see the time fly, so it really felt like a small-scale MMORPG.
There's an ugly side to consider though: the DRAMA!
Imagine how much drama arises during PvP events when everybody on the server knows each other... quickly the feelings of the player take over the personality of their character, and things get ugly fast. Being a game master on a Persistent World means you are accused of favoritism and must solve drama on a daily basis... eventually you get more people who quit than people who join and your server shuts down...
I guess all good things come to an end, but I won't forget my days on Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds soon!
I think the MMO could would great, still massive, if the heroing / questing portions of the world were more engaging and just as solid as the heroic portions.
wrcraft does an alright job with that, with regards having a solid system by wich materials make thing that are sellable. But Ultimately, there's very little reason to try to play the game as the merchant/diplomat/pacifist.
Vanguard had somegood things going on, with regards to ideas about creating living spaces and communities around not-questing. But the overall execution lacked polish and pop.
Its ultimately a very intersting question in virtual urban planning. How do you get people to exist between their home (the save point Major City X) and work (The fields and dungeons)?
I'd also like to say I'd LOVE for W-OW to be redesigned to be viable with ANY group of classes. Where a healer would be nice, but not required, or a tank would be very nice, but not required.
Kinda like CoD or Team Fortress. Sure, a Medic or Sniper are nice to have, but you don't really need them to play to an end goal.
good article, short and sweet. Your idea kinda reminds me of Guild Wars. While the game was big there were only so many people in towns and all the adventuring areas were instanced for the group. While it isn't exactly what you're proposing it did have the feel of everyone being useful and it didn't take much to get a group going since anyone could take an NPC healer if there were no PC healers available.
It's not a bad idea, but I'm afraid I'd end up on the server full of jerks. Plus you screw up once and the whole server hears about it. I throw my life away needlessly too often to have to be mocked by the entire player population everytime it happens.