If I ruled the world

[Garvan]

First forum post. Hello to you all, Garvan's the name, videogames is the game ^.^v

the point with this thread is just to go crazy with your wildest MMORPG fantasies and how they'd fit with Aion. I guess I better go first.

One of the first thing I'd change about Aion would be the races. If I ruled the world, I'd ditch both and keep just one. From there I'd adobt the approach seen in Knights of the old republic 1 & 2 and Fable. That is, your character has potential to become sinner as well as saint, hero or villian. This is decided by actions taken and words spoken as you play the game. Then these two «factions» could duke it out.

Secondly I'd make the characters change appearance to reflect their standing, much as seen in Knights of the old republic 1 & 2, Fable and Black & White 1 & 2. I suppose that during character creation, you should be able to «forsee» how your character will look like with full evil / good look as you can only define neautral look (e.g. starter look).

You'd start without your wings, quest around, get your wings and they'd be like... oh I dunno, greyish. If you play the good guy, your wings will gradually get brighter and you'll end up with a smashing Archangel look (yeah, they already have that one nailed pretty good as far as screenshots go..). Ms queen-*****-of-the-universe however, her wings will fade to black, her feathers begin to wither and fall off until they are barren and naked, like the bat wings seen in the game.

So the end look will not deviate much from what we'll get, but a gradient look would have been darn sweet. Of course you're not doomed to be evil / good for all time. You can turn the ship around and rise (or fall) to salvation / damnation whenever you feel like it (unlike in Fable, were the story eventually comes to an end).

Next on my list would be tough to answer quests. Seen a few of these in Knights of the old republic. A lot of MMORPG's out there have the same old deal; take these boxes and go to the town south of here, deliver and get a pair of leather boots for your trouble. While these are fine, I wouldn't mind adding quest where you are pushed in a corner and forces to make a moral stand.

Example:
Daddy James, little boy Kane, older sister Jane and their cow Doris. Kane is sick and won't live through the night without medecine. James can't afford the medecine since they're so poor. Jane points out that they can afford it, IF they butcher Doris and sell the meat. James objects, saying that the milk they get from Doris is the only way they have to make money.
Sell Doris to the butcher to save Kane or keep Doris to keep the family with at least some income? Which is the right choice? Which is the best choice?

Not wasting any time, next thing I'd cut away would be classes. In its place I'd replace it with what I suppose one could call the default character approach. What this means is that you start off with your average starting gear and a smile on your face. From this starting point you have the POTENTIAL to become the biggest mage in town, or an axe wielding warriror or even the nastiest assasin to ever crawl through the shadows. For people that have played Fable or Deus Ex, this should ring a bell.

Don't get me wrong; class system has its advantages. You're assigned a class which has a spesific role, a very clearly defined role in a party / raid. You are indeed a fragment of a greater whole, so it's easy to get in and do your thing and still contribute to the greater goal of the group. If you're a warrior, get up front and do some tanking. Healer? Stay back and keep those blessings coming. Mage? Throw those fireballs around like nobody's business. Summoner? Get your water thingy up and have it do... uhm... its thingy...

While their roles might shift a little from PvE to PvP, they still have pretty clearly defined roles. You all have your roles, carry them out together in harmony and we'll see this sucker (e.g. Big nasty NPC boss) through.

The thing I find so appealing about default character approach is that your character is not cut out in stone by the game designers, but molded in clay by your game style over time (though, still within the frames defined by the game designers, obviosly). I can't say for certain, but in my own thought experiments PvP would also profit from it, even more than PvE. Think about it:

you're flying around in the Abyss with your cool sword & shield, plus a seriously sweet armour. You spot a mage of the opposing side and charge head on. The mage of course responds by throwing some serious magic around. Fine you think, I'll suck up the damage, duck and dodge. That mana can't last forever. True, the mage runs out of mana (cause he's a n00b I guess).

Sucker, you think and dive onwards for the slaughter. Cloth armour vs Sword = sword win. Then out of nowhere the mage flicks up a crossbow. @£&%%¤#!!!!! The mage had also invested several EXP in ranger abilities, as a plan B should mana run out. You, who have invested all EXP in close combat skills don't have much to put up with against ranged combat.

PvP gets more interesting because you can never really tell how people have invested their EXP. Yes, there are variables in the class system (various skill trees), but IMHO these variables pale in comparisson to a default character approach. Not to mention that it relflects real life more as well. You have the potential to do anything, high school teacher, president, farmer, wall street buyer/seller or admiral... you can do it, assuming you bother to invest time and effort into it. It is wrong to believe that you're born into a role / class / cast and is stuck with it from here and until eternity ends.

Then there is the story. This is probably the thing I find most annoying with MMORPG. The story, or rather lack thereof. Yes, there is lore. WoW, EVE online and GW (MMORPG's I'm familiar with) all have some impressive libraries loaded with lore, good one at that. Problem is, at least for me, is that you never get to see much of it in the game. Yeah, it's mentioned in the quest text, but when I look at the quest text I look for what, where and what is it in for me. Can't really say that I care about these here woods, just tell me where to find these cursed thingies and how to kill them cause I need that 5 gold reward there is for getting the job done.

GW did the best job here, as they had in-game cut scenes that drove the story forward at given points in the game. THAT caught my attention and I followed the story, not just the objectives. Which is a thing that has got me exsited about Aion. These cut-scenes make a return, though as I understand it they're not just for the EPIC stuff like in GW, but also about your character, his / her story (which I fear will be identical to everyone else, but whatever...).

I don't know too much what they put in that players will have a impact on the story, but if I ruled the world it would have been as follows:
Once every quater in a year, there would be a champain. It would start at the beginning of the quater and end at, duh, the end of the same quater. Each champain would have multiple outcomes, depending on how players preformed.

Lets just say some crazy old fool found a super evil scroll and decided to use it to take over the world with an army of undead (all hail my skillz of originality! XD). Players rise to the challenges. Of course due to the duality about players being able to choose being good / evil, some might oppose the old foold and his evil scroll, while others might decided to JOIN his ranks (for a fee of course...). This invites both questing PvE and PvP collinding together as players try to decide which side is the better.

The good guys have come through and are at the final boss fight. If they kill him, great, they've won the day, the EXP and that sweet magical staff. If they get wiped, the world gets swarmed with undead, placing the old fool as king of the world (and don't go crying to Aion for help, I hate Deus Ex Machina solutions).

One might take it even further. Instead of leaving it in the hands of a raid party, leave it just to a single party or even a single player. Imagine that... the fate of a kingdom, nay – the world at the tip of your fingers. Screw up your mana management and the world will pay (not to mention you'll NEVER hear the end of it in the general chat :P).

I see for me interactive cinematics, kinda like seen in Resident Evil 4 and the later Tomb Raider games. That during a cinematic cut-scene you have to press spesific buttons at the right time to come through.

Assuming they win, the next champain might be about a new enemy. Assuming they fail, the next champain would undoubtebly be about reclaiming the world from the clutches of the old fool. Only now you have to cut through an army of undead to get to him (plus whatever player characters have sided with him).

So in a sense, the game staff writes scenarios with multiple endings and it is the gamers that decided which door they will walk through. Might wanna make it more than just a clean you won / lost ending. Add gradients. Yeah you killed the guy, but you caused damaged to the land, help us rebuild it. Or the guy is weakened and withdrawing, though a portion of the undead army was raised, so go forth and kill them all. Dunno if this will be a reality, but it's nice to day dream.

From the changes in the story, you'll get new quests. Although still the same old kill 5 of these, bring me 16 of those from there and talk to this person about that as we've seen many times before, the reason for them differ. Kill me 5 wolves that hunt my sheeps changes to kill me 15 undead cause those guys screwed up and allowed the army to get summoned.

Last but not least, I'd go away from the server approach and gone for the GW solution or the best way would be EVE online. That is, every one can play together. I hate that «you play WoW? Me too, wanna play together? What server are you on? Awh... that means I have to pay Blizzard to move my character cuz I don't wanna start all over again»

alright, enough videogame wet-dreams from my side. Feel free to list your own fantasies, alternatively pick mine appart and point out flaws in it. As long as it is done in a civilized manner, I don't mind at all.

[BaXx]

Impressive first post.

Welcome to the Source.

ONTOPIC: Nothing

[Icarus01]

if i could make my wildest fantasies come true ide want aion to be virtual reality and also be released downloaded patched and pre-paid for the next 5 years on my computer that somehow never got old and always had top notch gear because the aion devs luff me

btw welcome

[Calindor]

Me and a friend I met in L2/clan member have had a few MSN talks about our ideal MMO's which were both similar. They were open PvP like L2, with only one race of humans, or multiple races, but incorporated into the lore that they were not faction based (like L2, it makes no sense when elves and dark elves play with each other). The idea is to control castles and towns just like in L2...except you control the whole region, and it is somewhat hard to go town to town (no simple teleports or flight paths). You siege to gain control of a city and hold it, you run governments, collect taxes, provide services, etc...Enemy clans/factions will not be allowed near your cities without getting taxed. It would basically be a war and political/drama based game like L2, with some realism...No levels/hp/classes shown on your enemies (maybe even no levels at all, a system similar to EVE), except one where the gameplay matches the lore....Theres also a number of other smaller issues like raiding, gear, armour and all things like that, but I'm too lazy to type/remember them.

[Kaldur]

-50 points to Block-o'-texts

[gguus]

You just built the Sears Tower with words. Impressive.

[Mark]

Lol, seriously. I only read like one part of that, the part about the lore.

Aion's going to meet or exceed GW's level of lore. Aion has cutscenes for almost every other quest, and certainly for every important one.

[SoraNashimi]

If I ruled the Aion world, I'd have it be virtual reality too like Icarus stated. Imagine being able to actualy be inside another world o.O, only thing I'd worry about is death hehe, maybe it would actualy kill you in RL o.O? >.<

[Garvan]

@BaXx - Thanks, thank you and whaddya mean nuthin'?! C'mon, spill it. I promise I'll laugh my head off.

@Icarus01 - they already have that. It's called the matrix, though the devs insist on running this dull game called reality, aka real life, which despite terrible reviews is the most played game in the world.

@Calindor - don't have much L2 experience I'm afraid. Tried it for about... whooooo... 2 hours? On a private server mind you, so that might have something to do with it :P

@Kaldur - uhm... thanks?

@gguus - it's either that or spam or flaming, only things I'm good at when it comes to forums.

@Mark - good, so you didn't read the part where I said all that dirty stuff about.... ah, nevermind me!! Move along, nothing to see here. Nope, nothing at all.

@SoraNashimi - neh, your digital avatar gets killed and you get respawned. True as a total n00b at lvl 1 and with no recall of previous life, but hey... you're alive! Sort of....

[Kitten]

*falls defeated by the surprise attack of a thread turning into a book*@_@

[Cynthe]

You had some time to think about this methinks ^^

I like your idea of implementing a Fable like story to an MMO, where your side is based on your actions and decisions and not on your character's birth. In fact I'd like to see something a lot more sandbox then we've been seeing lately, but I'm almost ready to give up that dream as those games don't tend to survive.

Classes could be thrown out the window, see Ryzom, loved how your could completely customize your skills, there was 3 trees I think, ranger, warrior and mage. And you could develop one or two of them or all 3 if you were crazy :P What defined you wasn't your class, no one could know what you could do just by looking at you. The crafting and harvesting was similar, you are not limited by what you can choose only on how much time you are willing to spend on each skill..

Freedom! That's what I would like to see more, there's still too many restrictions in the name of balance, I'd like to see a more innovative way to do things. Though I think Ryzom had their basic mechanics nailed, they just couldn't see that writing quests and content could have saved their butt. -.-

But that's another soapbox ^^

[Zanion]

hi garvan


i just wanna say one thingo not see the elyos as the good angels and the asmodians like the fallen ones ! inspite of going for elyos i hate it when people wanna convert the asmodians into fallen angles...they just do not have any connection to angles as well as the elyos do not have (despite their look).

only that ^_^

[Mr Mage]

Not wasting any time, next thing I'd cut away would be classes. In its place I'd replace it with what I suppose one could call the default character approach. What this means is that you start off with your average starting gear and a smile on your face. From this starting point you have the POTENTIAL to become the biggest mage in town, or an axe wielding warriror or even the nastiest assasin to ever crawl through the shadows.

The default character creation system sounds like the Tabula Rasa class selection system to me.

I don't know too much what they put in that players will have a impact on the story, but if I ruled the world it would have been as follows:
Once every quater in a year, there would be a champain. It would start at the beginning of the quater and end at, duh, the end of the same quater. Each champain would have multiple outcomes, depending on how players preformed.

Lets just say some crazy old fool found a super evil scroll and decided to use it to take over the world with an army of undead (all hail my skillz of originality! XD). Players rise to the challenges. Of course due to the duality about players being able to choose being good / evil, some might oppose the old foold and his evil scroll, while others might decided to JOIN his ranks (for a fee of course...). This invites both questing PvE and PvP collinding together as players try to decide which side is the better.

The good guys have come through and are at the final boss fight. If they kill him, great, they've won the day, the EXP and that sweet magical staff. If they get wiped, the world gets swarmed with undead, placing the old fool as king of the world (and don't go crying to Aion for help, I hate Deus Ex Machina solutions).

This is like one of the idears that were originally for Guild Wars 2.
The example given was that there could be a dragon fling around and you could be given a quest to frighten off the dragon. If enough people scared off the dragon then it would leave. If not enough people scared off the dragon then the dragon would do some damage e.g. destroy a bridge. This would in turn cause a call out for wood to repair the bridge and that in turn would start a quest where the shipment of wood would/ could be attacked and so on.

[Calindor]

also I think every single mmoRPg should have the feature Earth and Beyond did. The devs should write teh storyline and change the world based on things and events the actual players have done on the server.