How will D&D the MMORPG handle the rules?

[RangerWickett]

In a real game, players are entertained by the story they're adventuring through. I haven't touched MMORPGs for about 4 years, but when I was last in them, the 'story' consisted of, "I'll pay you 1gp for each rat skin you bring back from the dungeon."

I would hope that some enterprising designer would come up with a way to work the concept of "adventures" into the game, so that instead of wandering around and killing stuff, you actually take part in plots. There might have to be thousands of possible plots available, of varying levels of complexity, but it would really help the game out. I have no idea how complicated this might be to code, though.

Basically, think of it this way. You can wander around and avoid killing stuff, and this is the most basic adventure: "Survival." If you just live in the camaign setting, you'll accrue XP slowly but surely. Like maybe a level for every 24 hours of active playtime.

Or you can wander around and kill stuff, in the adventure called, "Training." This is a little faster, but because it has no plot element, and contributes nothing to the sense of community any good MMORPG needs, just hunting stuff won't level you fast enough. There could be wilderness areas full of monsters, and perhaps dueling schools, and so on, and the harder challenge you beat, the more XP you get, but it'd still only be, like, twice as fast as just sitting around or shopping.

The meat of the game would be story rewards. If you or your party succeed at an adventure's goal, you get XP. The way to figure out who's working on an adventure and who wins it would be tough, I'm sure, but we could manage it. Some adventures would repeat often, things like, "escort the merchant" or "track down the criminal" or "rescue the lost orphan." Y'know, it'd be kinda like Grand Theft Auto 3. And there'd also be site-based adventures, like dungeons, where you can get treasure. Think Undermountain, which was basically a glorified excuse for people to level.

Then there'd be uncommon missions, things that you might have to sign up for or something. Things like 'track down the pirate kings,' or 'defeat the beast of the fire forest,' or 'stop the lightning rail hijackers.' These would be major XP generators.

And then there'd be a few ongoing world plots, like how the Lord of Blades seems to be preparing for war, or that a mighty, unstoppable dragon is prowling a certain area, looking for an ancient treasure.

Basically, it's gotta be more like D&D, and less like LevelQuest.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The meat of the game would be story rewards.

City of Heroes operates under this principle. A lot of the powergamers are complaining because they leveled to 40 as fast as they could and then found out they were too high level to get the story quests they passed up. Ooops.

If a D&D MMORPG ended up being City of Heroes with fantasy graphics I would be happy. People would scream that there was no loot, but I would be happy.

 

[ShadowX]

Ranger Wickett,

I have the same feelings as you. I played Everquest many years ago, but quickly got tired of it. I see so much potential in MMO games, but all I hear is promises that are never delivered. Every game is another clone of the monotonous system Everquest perfected, and not always a good one at that. Maybe some of these upcoming games will evolve the genre, but I seriously doubt it. I think part of the problem is the massive amount of resources it would take. MMORPG already cost a bundle, but to combine them with a deep game like Baldur's Gate 2, it would be exorbitantly expensive and have an extremely long development time. It's too bad that single-player rpgs have almost become extinct, instead we see all these canceled MMORPG.

 

[GodPhoenix]

Ranger Wickett,
game is another clone of the monotonous system Everquest perfected, and not always a good one at that. Maybe some of these upcoming games will evolve the genre, but I seriously doubt it.

1) You should play CoH

2) Is there a website for this DND MMORPG? I'd like to see some screenshots with my own eyes.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

8 hours in game is not 8 hours of playing, just like in D&D. If a day in game lasts about an hours, then you could replenish spells after 20 minutes of downtime. That might be a bit quick, so I would think 2 hours/day would be a bit better. The best option would probably to be to allow the caster to break up his downtime. Rest for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, then when you've accrued 40 minutes of rest (or whatever it is), you can rememorize spells. This system would work out pretty well I think.

I hope they keep the downtime in place though. It would allow the party to just kind of plop down and chat for a while as their characters are resting. If you are a wizard and you need some more spells you could hang back from a battle and chill while the rest of the party handled it, so as to not force them to stop. But then you will heal hit points while you are stopped, so that's even more incentive.

Mana would RUIN D&D wizards. So would requiring them to rest in designated spots.

But forcing the player to be out for 40 minutes out of every 2 hours could be problematic too. Perhaps cut the time in half.

screw that 10 minutes is wat too much downtime. Especially considering low level wizards cast what 2 spells a day. Look at me I can cast magic missle twice, and then I need to have 10 minutes of downtime. Hey I'm 5th level now I can cast 10 whole spells before my 10 minutes of downtime. I sure as heck don't want to plot down and talk to a bunh of schmucks I don't know and probably don't ever want to know for 10 minutes or more so I can do some artificial downtime thing.

If there going to do the spells per day thing fine, but then do the rest party on a dime thing.(like most CRPGs) Make rest an isntanced area with a chance for random encounters. If 0 randome encoutners it takes all of 30 seconds, if there is a random encoutner it takes 30 seconds + the time it takes to defeat the random ecounter(s).

CoH is about my limit for amount of downtime.(30 seconds to a minute to heal up) I also think games need a economy and be a bit more in depth than CoH. I'd be thrilled if they could throw in a puzzle pirates level economoy into a rpg game.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't know. Do most gamers want instant gratification games, or would they enjoy some with more drawn-out encounters?

I'll probably never play an MMORPG anymore, but I once did write the beginnings of a story set in a Virtual Reality MMORPG. I never could decide where it was going, but I liked the setting. It was a little bit like .Hack//sign, except that I came up with the idea in '01, so I wasn't influenced at the time.

The idea I had, which I think might work for an MMO D&D game, was to have basically agents, like in The Matrix, people who run the world -- one part moderator, one part game master. They have the ability to see everything in a given area with a sort of God's eye view, and they can possess any NPC, be it a monster, shopkeeper, or villain, and have the ability to control them in combat and for roleplaying. You'd have to hire maybe one 'agent' (in the story they were called Shields, because I was at the time inspired by Sagiro's storyhour and it's dreamscape) for every 100 players.

The game would mostly handle itself with all the mundane quests, but the agents would be there in place of requiring super-advanced AI. You'd pay the people who play the agents, and they'd have to be evaluated on their performances every once in a while through some sort of player-response system, but I'm sure a lot of people would jump at the chance to play Dragons and stuff.

 

[KenM]

A little off topic, but I think a Paranoia MMORPG would be great.

 

[Express]

Heres a 3 part interview about DDO from gamebanshee. Talks a little about using the 3.5 rules, although obviously being so early in development its a little hazy.

www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/dndonline.php


I think DDO could work. Some changes will have to be adapted for the persistent world aspect of an MMO. But then again NWN made a few feat/skill tweaks as well.

 

[Zulithe]

I suspect the gameplay to be similar to NWN, except NWN only has, what, 60 hours gameplay, not counting the expanions. A MMORPG has to sustain interest in the subscriber for years, or at least it tries to. They are really gonna need to draw out the leveling process or just redesign it from scratch so that you don't reach the 'cap' of level 30 or 40 so soon. Everquest goes beyond level 60 last I played it, and powergamers can get a character that tough in just a few months.

I know that the Dungeons & Dragons brand will bring a lot of customers but I just feel the mechanics are not suited for a MMORPG without substantial changes. Much more than what games like NWN sustained. We're talking about a much grander scale here.

One of the biggest is the concept of leveling which in computer RPGS I don't really like, yet since it such a familiar staple of the genre it remains in most games. Ideally a game would let you develop your skills and abilities gradually, you would not need to wait to level to gain the benefits. Leveling is a concept developed for pencil & paper RPGs in order to make character improvement more managable by splitting it into 'lumps'. In computer games this isn't an issue.

I could write pages about my gripes on this issue, but all-in-all the D&D CRPGs that have surfaced starting with Buldur's Gate have been very pleasing. We'll see

 

[Drengy]

More will be known next month…

Turbine Entertainment (the developers of D&D Online) is hosting Turbine Nation, a one-day mini-convention dealing with all the games they work on (Asheron's Call 1 & 2, Middle-Earth Online, and D&D Online). There will be a couple presentations on D&D Online, so many questions should be answered there. I'm also hoping they actually show some visuals/gameplay from the game, I'm dying to see how it's coming along.

More info on Turbine Nation here:

http://www.turbinenation.com

Also, Keith Baker will be there to talk about Eberron. Very cool.