Citadel: Mmo Platform Game Concept

[Mithrildor]

1. No skills that are always needed to succes
2. Make the cities multilevels high and make districts (like in GW , when te max of people is in a city and someelse wants to be in the city to , a new district is opened (sort of server).
3. Give people a way to "tune" their weapons
4. Missions, those guildwars missions were great fun and the boss battles were the best!
5. Guilds and guildbattles (no need to explain i think)
6. Area's which NEED co-op to be completed.

1. Yeah, there should always be more than one way to do things.
eg. A section might be too high to normally jump to; you could reach it via a flight spell or jump ability, or "double-jump boots", or player cooperation ("throw me up there, will you?").

2. Multilevel, absolutely. Most areas will be, just so you can better see all the characters involved. Districts/instances/shards, I'd rather not unless absolutely necessary. I don't like fragmenting the community like that unless it's deliberate on the players' part (like with arenas).

3. Crafting will be a major component, although I haven't come up with any real details yet.

4. There will definitely be missions, though that comes down to plot & storyline, which will only come late in development. Support for missions will need to be there though.

5. Rather than races or big guilds, I'm currently leaning more toward smaller player parties, about 8 players each or so. In Night it's all PvE, so affiliation isn't so important, and in Day it's pretty much a free-for-all. You wouldn't really want a situation like 50 guys invulnerable to each other's attacks ganging up on a couple of opponents. Small parties could form who are safe from each other (say, with a small portable version of Night's Protection spell), and work together while battling other groups.
There could still be informal allegiances (indeed, you couldn't stop it), but I doubt a hard division like Horde vs Alliance would work so well in this setting.

6. Co-op will be encouraged in some areas, but it will never be mandatory (see point 1). There should always be some potential path for a player, even if he is working alone, though he might have a much harder time of it.


1. I mean like skills every warrior need to have , it is so good and there are no alternatives, I don't want scuch things. I want people to have options wich skills they take into the day or the night.

6. Maybe Light vs Dark. There should be some special zone which can be conquered. When light conquers one of those special zones, it will be day till it is conquered by dark and guards will spawn protecting the place from dark a bit. Dark can choose to raid it and it will be night when they conquered it , their gaurds will spawn and light can choose to conquer it again. The location should be like this:

CODE

Trading route = T , Conquerable zone = C , alternative road = A , twilight towns = L
------------------------------------------------------
LTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTCCCLCCCTTTTTTTTTTTL
-----------------A--------A---------------
-----------------A--------A---------------
-----------------A--------A---------------
-----------------A--------A---------------
-----------------AAAAAAAAAA---------------



In this way conquering locations give bonusses but won't make it impossible for the other afflication to get from L to L (twilight town to Twilight town.).
But still there is an twilight town which is in the conquered zone with soem bonusses (cheaper traders etc.).

I think this will be great and fun , but that's my opinion.

I think this is the best way to manage this

 

[lordmunk]

QUOTE
[2.] what sort of stats would there be? would you have one that strictly affected things like magic and combat power, or ones that gave you physical legs-up, too, like higher jumping, etc?



Id love to see stats and spells/combat power etc.. done in the fasion of the game DragonRaja.

Strength = Physical Dmg (+0.1) / Block (+0.05)
Stamina = Health (+1) / Jump Height
Intellect = Mana/Health Regen (+0.05)
Wisdom = Mana (+1) / Magic Dmg (+0.1) / Block (+0.05)
Speed/Dex = How fast you move (+1)

You simply times the stat by the level to get the value.

Then you have player level, each item has its own level, plus each class has another level like mages have a magic level, priests have spirit level, melee have concentration level, new skills/spells would require these to be high, and not the player level iteself. each player level gives 10 points to add to your stats as you wish.

its not overly complicated system (granted that aint 100% how dragonraja's worked but close enough as it was over complicated) hopefully there would be somthing like that.


----------------

this system punishes people who power level, as they wouldn't of levels there skills as such and thus low levels nad monsters for there level would overpower them, forcing them to have to level there skills, its possible to make it so in party mode players can choose to level or level skills or level weapon skills.

 

[Mithrildor]

Ok we need to do something, it shouldnt be like Pandora Panic , we have to start early with the developing. What we need to do.

1. Make teams (1 Developing team , 1 artist team and 1 brainstorming team)
2. Let the the brainstorming team think about the basics and make a desicision
3. Let the artist make art about the ideas.
4. Let the Developers develope the basics of the game.
5. Then we look further abotu what to do.

Ok who are great thinkers?
Who are great programmers?
Who are great artists?

__________________________________________________________
Ok some ideas.

1.Make it like castlevania where you need special abilitys to come further (higher jumps, wall climbing etc.) , not just about to come further when you can defeat the monsters in that area (so no expierence farming)

2.Multiple kinds of areas:
a Sewers
b Palace
c Towns inside the walls
d The walls
e Towers
f Basements
g Gardens
h Barracks

3. Different kinds of skills:
a. Area affecting skills
b. Player affecting skills
c. Foe afffecting skills
d. Party affecting skills

4. Different classes of skills
a. Light Magic (Mage class of skills)
b. Dark magic (Mage class of skills)
c. Fire magic (Mage class of skills)
d. Water magic (Mage class of skills)
e. Lighting magic (Mage class of skills)
f. Air magic (Mage class of skills)
g. Ice magic (Mage class of skills)
h. Earth magic (Mage class of skills)
o. Leaf Magic (Mage class of skills)
i. Melee (Swords, Axes and Hammers weapon skills (warriors and Archers)
j. Ranged (Bows and throwing axes skills (archers and warriors
k. Staffs and Wands (melee and ranged magic weapons skills(Mages and Priests)
l. Strenght (warrior class of skills, also the ability to equip shields)
m. Archery (archer class of skills)
n. Healing (monk class of skills)

Mages have to ability to chose between the different classes of their magic at start and will have have Staffs and Wands
Priests will have Healing and Staffs and Wands
Archers will have Melee (weak), Ranged (strong) and Archery
Warriors will have Melee (strong), Ranged (weak) and Strenght

All classes will have their pros and cons (when you have chosen Fire as you will have water magic as your weakness and fighting against leaf magic will be your pro)

Don't got more ideas atm , I will make a new post when I got new.

Btw : I REALLY LIKE THE IDEA OF A MMO ON THE PANDORA! (Yeah I needed to say that in caps!)

 

[PoisonedV]

I might give a shot at making some characters, and post the svg's or something

 

[PSyMastR]

I'm in for helping in anyway I can. Story, subplots, etc...
Also, what language is this going to be programmed in?

 

[peca]

I'm for really simple characteristic, just two.
Strength, whitch affects toughness, stamina, inflicted damage, carry weight,...
and
Intelligence, whitch affects amount of mana, chance of random discovering secret and hidden places and items, spellpower, precision, aiming,...
and average between Strength and Intelligence give overall speed and fast reaction (reflexes).

Experience and leveling of character can be made just only by following quests, not by repetitive killing monsters.

It is just my personal opinion.

 

[kagato]

Ok we need to do something, it shouldnt be like Pandora Panic , we have to start early with the developing. What we need to do [...]

Whoa whoa, slow down there buddy.

* This is not an attempt at a "Pandora launch title". There is an awful lot of work, and it will take quite a while to develop right. Any attempt to rush it out in the next 2 months will result in a substandard product.

* Likewise, this is not an attempt to make "The Pandora MMO". It is a specific game idea, that happens to be an MMO and will be targeting the Pandora. There is a difference.
(By the way -- for anyone looking for a traditional MMORPG, this may not be the project for you. A more typical top-down RPG would be both simpler to develop and more to your tastes; this game by its nature will be fairly action oriented.)

* While I'm certainly looking for feedback, suggestions and assistance, I'm not actually throwing it out to the community to take over; I'd like to retain a degree of creative control. I'm quite fond of this game concept, and I'd like to see my "vision" through as far as I can. (If it later turns out I can't follow through, I'd hand over the reins rather than let the project die, of course.)



Having said all that, you've made some good suggestions.

I've rearranged the wiki a bit; that will be the hub of the project organisation.
If you want to get involved, the first thing you should probably do is join the wiki and add yourself to the Volunteers page.

As far as development is concerned, there are some very basic milestones to meet before anything else can happen.

• Select a development platform. (We can change later if necessary, but we need a starting point.)
  At the moment, Python seems to be A) a popular choice, and B) likely to get an early port to Pandora.
  cocos2d may be a good graphics framework, possibly using a backport of cocos2d-iphone (adds OpenGL ES support, but uses Objective-C).
  
• Decide the basics for the map system, tile display and sprites. These need to be determined before any artwork can even be contemplated, and affect engine development.
  How big should map tiles be (eg. 32x32px), and should the map support different tile sizes & shapes?
  Can we use a monolithic map for the whole game, or does it need to be divided up into sections?
  How big should character sprites be (in pixels, or in relation to map tiles; eg. 1:1, 2:1)?
  Can the graphics framework be made to support SVG sprites efficiently, or do we need to stick to bitmaps?
  
• Once that's nailed down, we should probably produce a basic graphics engine test - loading a random-tile map, displaying and scrolling, player movement and collision. Make sure the selected tools are capable of producing the results we need. (This can all be done with plain square bitmaps.)
  
• If we've got some network programmers by this point, they can start working on some network engine tests, figure out a basic protocol, see just how much data we'll really need to throw around etc. This could be done purely as a data simulation, or in conjunction with the graphics test.
  
• Then we can put the art team to work on creating game assets (of which there will be a huge amount). I'll have a style guide in place by this point, so that everyone is producing consistent work.

Through all of this, the brainstorming process should be refining the game idea down to the point of turning into actual documentation for the developers.

I'll add all this to the wiki for reference.

 

[Creature XL]

As far as development is concerned, there are some very basic milestones to meet before anything else can happen.

• Select a development platform. (We can change later if necessary, but we need a starting point.)
  At the moment, Python seems to be A) a popular choice, and B) likely to get an early port to Pandora.
  cocos2d may be a good graphics framework, possibly using a backport of cocos2d-iphone (adds OpenGL ES support, but uses Objective-C).
  
• Decide the basics for the map system, tile display and sprites. These need to be determined before any artwork can even be contemplated, and affect engine development.
  How big should map tiles be (eg. 32x32px), and should the map support different tile sizes & shapes?
  Can we use a monolithic map for the whole game, or does it need to be divided up into sections?
  How big should character sprites be (in pixels, or in relation to map tiles; eg. 1:1, 2:1)?
  Can the graphics framework be made to support SVG sprites efficiently, or do we need to stick to bitmaps?
  
• Once that's nailed down, we should probably produce a basic graphics engine test - loading a random-tile map, displaying and scrolling, player movement and collision. Make sure the selected tools are capable of producing the results we need. (This can all be done with plain square bitmaps.)
  
• If we've got some network programmers by this point, they can start working on some network engine tests, figure out a basic protocol, see just how much data we'll really need to throw around etc. This could be done purely as a data simulation, or in conjunction with the graphics test.
  
• Then we can put the art team to work on creating game assets (of which there will be a huge amount). I'll have a style guide in place by this point, so that everyone is producing consistent work.

Through all of this, the brainstorming process should be refining the game idea down to the point of turning into actual documentation for the developers.

I'll add all this to the wiki for reference.



Yesterday I took some minutes to think about how I would tackle this if I would be project's leader.
It is nice to see that you have exactly the same idea

Now I just can wait to be accepted in the wikispace

 

[rikisg]

I would suggest taking a look at Maplestory and Ragnarok Battle Offline (RBO). Maplestory combat and bossfights blow but it has quite the few ideas you want implemented, like player owned stores and multi level cities.

Now RBO isn't an mmo but it has up to 3 player co-op and the combat seems realy great. To use spells and skills you use simple button combos like up, down, strong attack and usualy you don't have enough mana to only relay on skills, so combat is varied and doesn't bog down to maplestory spam one button that is your strongest attack and pick up drops.

The main problem with combat in many (mmo)rpgs is that its hard to get the player to use multiple attacks without using cooldown and the like. Why put points into other skills and use them when you have one realy strong one? Iirc in Sacred 2 mana doesn't regen and weaker skills actualy give you mana to use for the more powerful ones.

I realy like the setting that you have thought out and will follow this closely.

 

[sindbad]

Brainstorm list:

- I haven't seen an RPG yet that has a comfortable and same-status-with-melee magic skill system (and sometimes even non-magical ranged). I haven't played that many, but it's an issue I keep hitting all the time. Warhammer Online seems the best I've seen so far.

- Python and a nice library for it (ideally pyglet, at least pygame) would make it an attractive option for me and would lower the entry barrier for not so experienced programmers.

- I'm not sure cocos2d is a good fit for an online game, I'll have to look into it more. [edit] At first sight, it seems I was wrong earlier. Will investigate further.

- A properly abstracted engine that can be used for the level editor would should be provided asap, so people can create content.

- Resolution agnostic engine.

- If you have a LOT of players, posix threads don't cope well on the server side. Twisted has been proven to be very efficient, but it's a bit weird. Stackless python might work better (the eve people love it), but it needs a separate interpreter installed on the server. Neither scale linearly to multiple cores.

- OpenGL rendering for speed, but must be abstracted behind some library. Again, to get more eyes to look at the code.

- Proof of concept asap. Will help out. Make a project on google code?

- License. Some people will fret over this. Best to have a liberal license, but if valuable libraries are GPL, it's not a disaster to switch.

 

[PSyMastR]

The only thing I see though, is python has an overhead as being interpreted, and with an MMO wouldn't you want the least overhead possible?

 

[Phawx]

Will PvP be allowed? If so, different races may be needed. Grief killing just plain sucks. Perhaps PvP would resort to turn-based combat to satisfy lag?

I know you are looking for Arcade type of play, so maybe PvP wouldn't work really well. I only see PvP being enjoyable through Turn-based combat unless the combat system and netcode are both unimaginably well thought out.

Also, Turn based combat allows for more graphically rich, for lack of a better word, "scenes".

Note: I actually enjoy Real-time play over turn based, but I rather enjoy how Fallout 3 plays. You CAN aim and fire yourself, or you can initiate a turn based system with % to land hits on different parts of the body.

Also, will items *appear* as they are on the floor? Not like a generic bag or chest that contains different items?

Is dual wielding possible? What about two shields?

 

[Mithrildor]

Will PvP be allowed? If so, different races may be needed. Grief killing just plain sucks. Perhaps PvP would resort to turn-based combat to satisfy lag?

I know you are looking for Arcade type of play, so maybe PvP wouldn't work really well. I only see PvP being enjoyable through Turn-based combat unless the combat system and netcode are both unimaginably well thought out.

Also, Turn based combat allows for more graphically rich, for lack of a better word, "scenes".

Note: I actually enjoy Real-time play over turn based, but I rather enjoy how Fallout 3 plays. You CAN aim and fire yourself, or you can initiate a turn based system with % to land hits on different parts of the body.

Also, will items *appear* as they are on the floor? Not like a generic bag or chest that contains different items?

Is dual wielding possible? What about two shields?

Monsters won't drop anything, it causes to much lag to let the monsters lie down till some on grabs te loot or place items on the ground and it will disturb your game to much to open up a screen every time you defeated a foe. So I think just quest rewards are what needed.

 

[Phawx]

Will PvP be allowed? If so, different races may be needed. Grief killing just plain sucks. Perhaps PvP would resort to turn-based combat to satisfy lag?

I know you are looking for Arcade type of play, so maybe PvP wouldn't work really well. I only see PvP being enjoyable through Turn-based combat unless the combat system and netcode are both unimaginably well thought out.

Also, Turn based combat allows for more graphically rich, for lack of a better word, "scenes".

Note: I actually enjoy Real-time play over turn based, but I rather enjoy how Fallout 3 plays. You CAN aim and fire yourself, or you can initiate a turn based system with % to land hits on different parts of the body.

Also, will items *appear* as they are on the floor? Not like a generic bag or chest that contains different items?

Is dual wielding possible? What about two shields?

Monsters won't drop anything, it causes to much lag to let the monsters lie down till some on grabs te loot or place items on the ground and it will disturb your game to much to open up a screen every time you defeated a foe. So I think just quest rewards are what needed.


Good Point. So than quests will be the only way to acquire stuff and things? I like rare drops though.

 

[Vorporeal]

It's possible that you acquire drops from killing monsters, but you can't add them to your inventory until you finish the quest. At that point, you can take as many of the dropped items as you have room for (or it could be implemented that it's a specific number?) as well as your quest rewards. That way, there are material rewards for killing monsters, but the game play isn't slowed down.

 

[sindbad]

The only thing I see though, is python has an overhead as being interpreted, and with an MMO wouldn't you want the least overhead possible?
It's small enough to not notice most of the time. Since it's much easier to program in, the game could actually end up being faster because more people can make more optimisations. Also, network delays are usually the bottleneck in such situations.

 

[lordmunk]

Python is a easy language to learn and it does mean alot more can get involved.

And as someone said before all the parts that require to run really fast can slowly be ported to C libs and work that way so eventually we would have a pile of code ported to C and rest in python which should makei t work ok and eliminate a few issues.

as for the dev and discussions wouldn't a IRC or a dedicated forum be worth investing in? as it would give a place to do all this in so all areas can be split up and discussed. like how the map is made could copy how the game ConquerOnline done it , it wasnt to complex as it was basically flat and split up into layer 0 was just a bunch of on's and off's for if you could move there or not, layer 1 was base image for the areas, layer 2 was details.

 

[bzar]

The only thing I see though, is python has an overhead as being interpreted, and with an MMO wouldn't you want the least overhead possible?

If resource-intensive parts (graphics, sound, AI etc) are coded in C and the game mechanic in python, you have nearly no overhead. Think of python as a smart skinny manager for a bunch of bulky C brutes. It doesn't matter that the manager is skinny and can't do the brute work, because most of the time he won't be doing anything anyway. He'll just let the brutes do the heavy lifting and concentrate on fluid management himself.

Or something. My analogue really lost steam somewhere. Must be the whisky

 

[PoisonedV]

"* While I'm certainly looking for feedback, suggestions and assistance, I'm not actually throwing it out to the community to take over; I'd like to retain a degree of creative control. I'm quite fond of this game concept, and I'd like to see my "vision" through as far as I can. (If it later turns out I can't follow through, I'd hand over the reins rather than let the project die, of course.)"
this isn't your game mithrildor, don't say something as definitive.

anyway, phawx few points:
PVP is optional, you could just play PvE or you could risk it in PvP. thats a decision and part of the gameplay. there wont be enough players where this would ever be a real problem.
dual wielding should be possible, they have two hands. not sure about it though, ask kagato.
also fallout 3 sucked, long live fallout

 

[Phawx]

I'm generally not worried about PvP, I don't know if you've ever played UO before (almost 12 years ago now, jeez I was 14) but Griefing was a huge problem. Usually creating races creates a ruleset on how PvP is handled and makes sense within a game world. Having PvP just being free for all takes the MMO out of the game because than it becomes anti-social. The Bar for entry into PvP systems is constantly set higher making it near impossible to actually get anywhere and usually frustrate the user to go elsewhere.

Which is what I did...I went to Sierra's "the Realm."

Also, I don't believe you've played Fallout 3. If you have, you wouldn't be saying it sucked. I've played Fallout 3 for about two hours and found it rather enjoyable.