Hmmm. I understand.
Is this ... like some kind of challenge?For me I've always thought the best possible game would be an MMORPG; a good MMO should be like a world of its own, with everything in it having its own purpose.
MMOs shouldn't be like they're today, where you just click a button to find a random party and teleport into a dungeon or raid, no, you should have to find the players to party up, and physically travel to the location. One of the absolute worst things to have ever happened was Dungeon Finder and LFG.
Why play an MMO if you're not going to see the world? If you're just going to stay in town all day and get teleported to every place, then why not just play another game that's all about that (Which is probably why MOBAs like League and Dota are so popular for example.)
Same thing with single player; Sure, ofc it has to be possible to play the game on your own, but because the games are made so trivially easy and you get all your EXP from just running from one quest hub to the next there's not really any reason to find someone else to party up with.
Instead there should be clear incentives for players to party up, like for instance that having tanks, dps, and healers together allow you to take on much more difficult (and thus more rewarding) mobs/bosses, grind for longer without having to return to town—which saves time on having to move back and forth, make more money (if everyone has their own crafting/resource gathering profession), etc.
Then with all the direct incentives for players to naturally group up they'll also come to enjoy the game more as they'll socialize, which basically everyone wants but few go out of their way unless there's an obvious reason to.
I also think that there has to be open world PvP, no such things as turning pvp flags on/off or playing on a PvE server. Of course there can be safe zones, ideally because of NPC guards and/or player guilds. Ofc there's also always going to be PKKers (Player Killer Killers) that go after the bad guys and uphold "justice" like vigilantes, but also having some kind of bounty system would be nice.
Anyway, reason why there has to be PvP is because it further adds on to the social aspects, you want to group up to protect yourself, you have to weigh the risk vs reward of going to certain places, taking certain paths, etc.
Personally I don't even see myself as a PvPer, because I generally don't go out of my way to fight other players, and I tend to also be pretty bad at it tbh. But PvP adds some tension, and it also means that the best grinding spots get contested and fought over, which incentivises players to explore and look for other places to grind.
Oh right, there also has to be reasons to explore, because why have a huge "living" world and then every player just follows a set path and stays in a couple of zones, and after they're done with one zone they never come back, and it just continues all the way until max level and then they just stay in town and teleport to raids until all the "endgame content" runs out... ("Endgame content" is such a trashy antithetical design for an MMO btw, if the game only starts at max level and everything before it was meaningless, then why even have levels at all? World of Warcraft is possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to the MMO genre...)
Zones should be mixed up with all kinds of weak and strong monsters, easy and hard dungeons, and things to fin;, there should never ever be a thing like "Level X Zone", meaning an entire zone where only players of level X+/- a few levels go, then when they become too high level they move on to the next and never come back.
Maybe in one part of the zone there's a lot of low level goblins, so players in the 10-30 range tend to go there, but there's also the goblin chieftain and higher level patrols that would be too difficult for players below level 40, and in a nearby ruins there's a level 50-60 dungeon so level 50+ players tend to run by and maybe they'll help out the lowbies they pass by and/or while waiting for the rest of their dungeon party to arrive.
Then there might be some super high level boss monster, like a dragon, hydra, giant, or maybe a small group of ogres or something that you could run into if you're unlucky.
Guilds absolutely have to be a thing, and they also have to have reasons to fight over resources, be able to control cites and take over territories, have huge siege battles, and so on.
Now I have to talk about player character customization etc. both cosmetic and gameplay, initial character creation and also character development throughout the game.
#1 there just has to be all kinds of races, the more the better. And while "balance" matters, it only matters to an extent, and balance doesn't just have to revolve around the stats and abilities of the races, there's so many more dynamics.
Say, what if some evil races (Demons, Undead, Vampires, Werewolves, etc.) are statistically more powerful than the more general races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc.), but they have other drawbacks.
Demons might just live in some desolate wasteland barely without any NPC towns and safety, every zone is a chaotic battlefield with monsters and other demons slaughtering each other. Any human, elven, etc. faction see you as evil and would kill you on the spot if you show up, or call for hunting parties if they're unable to.
The other races would obviously similarly be hated by most other races (and by each other).
The average undead would have a significant weakness to holy/divine/light magic and fire, be lacking in crafters (which means lack of good available equipment, potions, etc.), and the factions would be controlled by high level necromancers and liches that frequently fight large scale battles with their surroundings, light forces obviously come with crusades and try to eliminate the evil, etc. (We've all read Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and know how this stuff works, right?)
Vampires and Werewolves could have the option to play among humans (or whatever race they're originally from, e.g. an Elven Vampire would be disguised as a regular Elf) and mingle among the other players while trying to stay undiscovered, every night/couple of days they'd have to drink blood and what not.
Also, as I mentioned in the other thread, even completely broken races like dragons should be fine so long as it's in moderation, because even in the absolute worst case, what can a few dragons (or even a hundred) do against thousands~millions of players and NPCs?
Though I really feel like something like a dragon should be very rare and exclusive, so 10~20 players tops, and they'd have a high risk of dying to other monsters during the early growth phase and have permadeath so they have to completely start over if they die (and most likely not get the opportunity to become a dragon again either).
Probably also make their characters unable to log out, i.e. even if the player stops playing and does something else/goes to sleep, their character's body still remain in the game and can be killed, so they'd have to return to a remove cave or something and hide while before logging out.
Another thing that hasn't really been touched upon is race/alignment/faction changes during the actual gameplay rather than character creation. For instance, even if you can't start as an undead, you might be able to become a necromancer, and at some point later join or create an undead faction and/or become a lich.
Maybe an item or a quest or a curse let/cause you to become undead/vampire/demon/etc.
Or you do some really good deed, or awaken/save some divine god and become an angel or holy servant as a reward etc.
And besides that, who is to say that just a regular human can't be really evil and join some dark faction, maybe you're a really nasty PKer that's banned from most NPC towns and cities; Or a peaceloving herbivore vampire that's turned over a new leaf.
Changing factions is fine, it just has to not be too easy to change back and forth on a whim.
Also, something to not forget is that in the end the more 'generic'/common races always tend to have the most players playing then, and thus they already have an inherent advantage on the overall scheme of things. If anything, other races would need to have pretty big upsides to stand a chance against Humans, Elves, Catgirls, and what not. (Just checked some mmo statistics, and FF14 has Humans and the Nekomimi race as the top, World of Warcraft has over 40% of the players playing as Blood Elves–15%, Humans–15% and Night Elves–11%, after that the rest only see 7% or less of player base.
Other than just having different races, there also has to be a lot of customizability within the races, everyone just looking more or less the same is just lame. Only having 5 different face types, 9 hairstyles, 6 eye types, etc. is just not OK. But even in games with pretty good character customization like say Black Desert Online, it doesn't really matter all that much because when you're ingame you won't notice the facial features that much and it's all covered up by gear, the exact same gear every other player is also wearing, in the end characters even look less unique than in say World of Warcraft because there there's at least transmogs so you can change how your equipment looks.
And even then, I'm not even really a fan of transmogs, because everyone still aims for the exact same "Best in Slot" gear—all transmogs do is put some fresh coat of paint on it. But what's the absolute worst is actually cosmetic microtransactions imo, not only does it have the same problem as transmogs where you still just use the exact same equipment as everyone else, but now there's even fewer options to choose from since you can only choose from the select few things the developers made for the cash store, and on top of that, since the whole game's revenue come from microtransactions the developers are incentivised to further reduce the customizability that exist normally so people buy their shitty cosmetics instead.
Honestly I think there's even an argument to be made for paid cosmetics being worse than literal P2W.
Anyway, so having all kinds of different equipment and accessories with different looks is hugely important, and this is also where a deep crafting system has a role to play as players would be able to make their own custom gear. Guilds designing their own personal coat of arms and banners.
Seriously, a huge part of MMORPGs is just the ability to look cool and show off, stand around in some highly populated town/city and awe the passersby (and/or be the passersby being impressed and wanting to get some cool gear to show off yourself).
As mentioned, tied in with this is the crafting professions, and to enable them, not only must there be a deep crafting system, but there also has to be an actual demand for the player-crafted goods. Why would anyone craft equipment if players can just get the same or even better gear, cheaper and/or more easily, by only killing mobs and clearing dungeons? Who would buy food or potions if you never have to take a rest and recover from battle?
And also, killing monsters and doing quests can't be the only ways to gain experience. Crafting, mining resources, disarming traps, exploring, etc. also have to at least provide some amount of experience so it doesn't just end up being a waste of time.
There should be a lot more materials to get than equipment, at least when it comes to rarer equipment, so crafters end up making most of the mid-high quality equipment, especially at the higher levels.
Ah I really can just write forever, but I'll quickly mention a few things and then I'll stop...
Leveling has to be relatively slow and the level cap should be really high or not exist at all, or some kind of mechanic that encourages starting over (maybe a rebirth system that makes you stronger on your next character?... Become an exclusive race?), because a huge part of the game is seeing your character grow stronger. And imo the best way for that is by leveling up, but it should still not come too easily so you spend more time on each stage instead of breezing through and not have time to explore the world.
Taking a week to get to max level is just unacceptable, and getting to level 60 in a month or two is maybe okay if the level cap is at least level 100, but really, the levels aren't actually what's fun, what's fun is to strive for a goal and all the other stuff that happens along the way. If you reach the goal then there's no longer any reason or more like excuse to play.
Though the endless progression system should definitely not be some random trash like say the Paragon Level System (D3) or such, where you're technically at max level but still "leveling up". At that point you're still just at "endgame" anyway, and you even reached your goal, but now you're grinding for some arbitrary reason and just fighting the same mobs and bosses over and over with bigger numbers...
Ingame trading has to be allowed (It's actually insane to me how it's more and more common for MMOs not allow treading, just to fight against botting and hackers. Might as well just delete the game then if they're just going to be ruined by that.), but you should have to trade face to face, not just from some UI while you're moving around elsewhere. Ofc you could own a shop and have some NPC (or maybe even player) clerks buying and selling things for you, and you could buy and sell on an auction or set up a stall in a town, but there should be no (easily accessible) way to magically send over an item or making a payment.
Someone could buy the item for you and/or deliver your item to you, but they'd have to travel the distance in one way or another.
Also, even if there's auction houses, they should most definitely take a cut and make it so that in one way or another items bought and sold there are more expensive than if you bought it directly, they should also be fairly localized, so you can't just go to some random auction house and buy literally any item up for sale in any auction house in the whole game.
One of the main reasons for this is that it would give merchants a way to make profits by transporting and buying and selling goods, and if there's caravans moving around then they need to be protected from monsters, evil NPCs and players. Encourage development of villages and towns in places with rare resources, and all kinds of stuff.
Oh and this one would probably be unpopular if you just asked around, but players has to drop loot and lose exp on death, and also some kind of revival penalty so they don't just die over and over again without consequence in for example a siege battle or guild war.
You wouldn't need to lose a lot on death, maybe even just a chance would be enough, but there should be a risk of even losing an equipped item. Ofc evil/red name players would have an even higher chance of dropping loot and even more of it than regular players.
Oh and this video just reminded me, but flying mounts should definitely be rare. Maybe even permadeath like in some of the novels like Rebirth of the Thief.
p.s. for some reason when I try to write novels nothing comes out, but random MMORPG topics I can write on and on without an end...
They stuck star lanes in an almost perfect game 
Star lanes are fine for Sins of a Solar Empire, but not *MoO*. 
IMO, the whole point of single player is for people who don't want to interact with other real people. Otherwise, it's not a single player game then. As for the description of your ideal world...I was really put off by it and - if it ever existed - I'd never play it.For me I've always thought the best possible game would be an MMORPG; a good MMO should be like a world of its own, with everything in it having its own purpose.
MMOs shouldn't be like they're today, where you just click a button to find a random party and teleport into a dungeon or raid, no, you should have to find the players to party up, and physically travel to the location. One of the absolute worst things to have ever happened was Dungeon Finder and LFG.
Why play an MMO if you're not going to see the world? If you're just going to stay in town all day and get teleported to every place, then why not just play another game that's all about that (Which is probably why MOBAs like League and Dota are so popular for example.)
Same thing with single player; Sure, ofc it has to be possible to play the game on your own, but because the games are made so trivially easy and you get all your EXP from just running from one quest hub to the next there's not really any reason to find someone else to party up with.
Instead there should be clear incentives for players to party up, like for instance that having tanks, dps, and healers together allow you to take on much more difficult (and thus more rewarding) mobs/bosses, grind for longer without having to return to town—which saves time on having to move back and forth, make more money (if everyone has their own crafting/resource gathering profession), etc.
Then with all the direct incentives for players to naturally group up they'll also come to enjoy the game more as they'll socialize, which basically everyone wants but few go out of their way unless there's an obvious reason to.
I also think that there has to be open world PvP, no such things as turning pvp flags on/off or playing on a PvE server. Of course there can be safe zones, ideally because of NPC guards and/or player guilds. Ofc there's also always going to be PKKers (Player Killer Killers) that go after the bad guys and uphold "justice" like vigilantes, but also having some kind of bounty system would be nice.
Anyway, reason why there has to be PvP is because it further adds on to the social aspects, you want to group up to protect yourself, you have to weigh the risk vs reward of going to certain places, taking certain paths, etc.
Personally I don't even see myself as a PvPer, because I generally don't go out of my way to fight other players, and I tend to also be pretty bad at it tbh. But PvP adds some tension, and it also means that the best grinding spots get contested and fought over, which incentivises players to explore and look for other places to grind.
Oh right, there also has to be reasons to explore, because why have a huge "living" world and then every player just follows a set path and stays in a couple of zones, and after they're done with one zone they never come back, and it just continues all the way until max level and then they just stay in town and teleport to raids until all the "endgame content" runs out... ("Endgame content" is such a trashy antithetical design for an MMO btw, if the game only starts at max level and everything before it was meaningless, then why even have levels at all? World of Warcraft is possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to the MMO genre...)
Zones should be mixed up with all kinds of weak and strong monsters, easy and hard dungeons, and things to fin;, there should never ever be a thing like "Level X Zone", meaning an entire zone where only players of level X+/- a few levels go, then when they become too high level they move on to the next and never come back.
Maybe in one part of the zone there's a lot of low level goblins, so players in the 10-30 range tend to go there, but there's also the goblin chieftain and higher level patrols that would be too difficult for players below level 40, and in a nearby ruins there's a level 50-60 dungeon so level 50+ players tend to run by and maybe they'll help out the lowbies they pass by and/or while waiting for the rest of their dungeon party to arrive.
Then there might be some super high level boss monster, like a dragon, hydra, giant, or maybe a small group of ogres or something that you could run into if you're unlucky.
Guilds absolutely have to be a thing, and they also have to have reasons to fight over resources, be able to control cites and take over territories, have huge siege battles, and so on.
Now I have to talk about player character customization etc. both cosmetic and gameplay, initial character creation and also character development throughout the game.
#1 there just has to be all kinds of races, the more the better. And while "balance" matters, it only matters to an extent, and balance doesn't just have to revolve around the stats and abilities of the races, there's so many more dynamics.
Say, what if some evil races (Demons, Undead, Vampires, Werewolves, etc.) are statistically more powerful than the more general races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc.), but they have other drawbacks.
Demons might just live in some desolate wasteland barely without any NPC towns and safety, every zone is a chaotic battlefield with monsters and other demons slaughtering each other. Any human, elven, etc. faction see you as evil and would kill you on the spot if you show up, or call for hunting parties if they're unable to.
The other races would obviously similarly be hated by most other races (and by each other).
The average undead would have a significant weakness to holy/divine/light magic and fire, be lacking in crafters (which means lack of good available equipment, potions, etc.), and the factions would be controlled by high level necromancers and liches that frequently fight large scale battles with their surroundings, light forces obviously come with crusades and try to eliminate the evil, etc. (We've all read Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and know how this stuff works, right?)
Vampires and Werewolves could have the option to play among humans (or whatever race they're originally from, e.g. an Elven Vampire would be disguised as a regular Elf) and mingle among the other players while trying to stay undiscovered, every night/couple of days they'd have to drink blood and what not.
Also, as I mentioned in the other thread, even completely broken races like dragons should be fine so long as it's in moderation, because even in the absolute worst case, what can a few dragons (or even a hundred) do against thousands~millions of players and NPCs?
Though I really feel like something like a dragon should be very rare and exclusive, so 10~20 players tops, and they'd have a high risk of dying to other monsters during the early growth phase and have permadeath so they have to completely start over if they die (and most likely not get the opportunity to become a dragon again either).
Probably also make their characters unable to log out, i.e. even if the player stops playing and does something else/goes to sleep, their character's body still remain in the game and can be killed, so they'd have to return to a remove cave or something and hide while before logging out.
Another thing that hasn't really been touched upon is race/alignment/faction changes during the actual gameplay rather than character creation. For instance, even if you can't start as an undead, you might be able to become a necromancer, and at some point later join or create an undead faction and/or become a lich.
Maybe an item or a quest or a curse let/cause you to become undead/vampire/demon/etc.
Or you do some really good deed, or awaken/save some divine god and become an angel or holy servant as a reward etc.
And besides that, who is to say that just a regular human can't be really evil and join some dark faction, maybe you're a really nasty PKer that's banned from most NPC towns and cities; Or a peaceloving herbivore vampire that's turned over a new leaf.
Changing factions is fine, it just has to not be too easy to change back and forth on a whim.
Also, something to not forget is that in the end the more 'generic'/common races always tend to have the most players playing then, and thus they already have an inherent advantage on the overall scheme of things. If anything, other races would need to have pretty big upsides to stand a chance against Humans, Elves, Catgirls, and what not. (Just checked some mmo statistics, and FF14 has Humans and the Nekomimi race as the top, World of Warcraft has over 40% of the players playing as Blood Elves–15%, Humans–15% and Night Elves–11%, after that the rest only see 7% or less of player base.
Other than just having different races, there also has to be a lot of customizability within the races, everyone just looking more or less the same is just lame. Only having 5 different face types, 9 hairstyles, 6 eye types, etc. is just not OK. But even in games with pretty good character customization like say Black Desert Online, it doesn't really matter all that much because when you're ingame you won't notice the facial features that much and it's all covered up by gear, the exact same gear every other player is also wearing, in the end characters even look less unique than in say World of Warcraft because there there's at least transmogs so you can change how your equipment looks.
And even then, I'm not even really a fan of transmogs, because everyone still aims for the exact same "Best in Slot" gear—all transmogs do is put some fresh coat of paint on it. But what's the absolute worst is actually cosmetic microtransactions imo, not only does it have the same problem as transmogs where you still just use the exact same equipment as everyone else, but now there's even fewer options to choose from since you can only choose from the select few things the developers made for the cash store, and on top of that, since the whole game's revenue come from microtransactions the developers are incentivised to further reduce the customizability that exist normally so people buy their shitty cosmetics instead.
Honestly I think there's even an argument to be made for paid cosmetics being worse than literal P2W.
Anyway, so having all kinds of different equipment and accessories with different looks is hugely important, and this is also where a deep crafting system has a role to play as players would be able to make their own custom gear. Guilds designing their own personal coat of arms and banners.
Seriously, a huge part of MMORPGs is just the ability to look cool and show off, stand around in some highly populated town/city and awe the passersby (and/or be the passersby being impressed and wanting to get some cool gear to show off yourself).
As mentioned, tied in with this is the crafting professions, and to enable them, not only must there be a deep crafting system, but there also has to be an actual demand for the player-crafted goods. Why would anyone craft equipment if players can just get the same or even better gear, cheaper and/or more easily, by only killing mobs and clearing dungeons? Who would buy food or potions if you never have to take a rest and recover from battle?
And also, killing monsters and doing quests can't be the only ways to gain experience. Crafting, mining resources, disarming traps, exploring, etc. also have to at least provide some amount of experience so it doesn't just end up being a waste of time.
There should be a lot more materials to get than equipment, at least when it comes to rarer equipment, so crafters end up making most of the mid-high quality equipment, especially at the higher levels.
Ah I really can just write forever, but I'll quickly mention a few things and then I'll stop...
Leveling has to be relatively slow and the level cap should be really high or not exist at all, or some kind of mechanic that encourages starting over (maybe a rebirth system that makes you stronger on your next character?... Become an exclusive race?), because a huge part of the game is seeing your character grow stronger. And imo the best way for that is by leveling up, but it should still not come too easily so you spend more time on each stage instead of breezing through and not have time to explore the world.
Taking a week to get to max level is just unacceptable, and getting to level 60 in a month or two is maybe okay if the level cap is at least level 100, but really, the levels aren't actually what's fun, what's fun is to strive for a goal and all the other stuff that happens along the way. If you reach the goal then there's no longer any reason or more like excuse to play.
Though the endless progression system should definitely not be some random trash like say the Paragon Level System (D3) or such, where you're technically at max level but still "leveling up". At that point you're still just at "endgame" anyway, and you even reached your goal, but now you're grinding for some arbitrary reason and just fighting the same mobs and bosses over and over with bigger numbers...
Ingame trading has to be allowed (It's actually insane to me how it's more and more common for MMOs not allow treading, just to fight against botting and hackers. Might as well just delete the game then if they're just going to be ruined by that.), but you should have to trade face to face, not just from some UI while you're moving around elsewhere. Ofc you could own a shop and have some NPC (or maybe even player) clerks buying and selling things for you, and you could buy and sell on an auction or set up a stall in a town, but there should be no (easily accessible) way to magically send over an item or making a payment.
Someone could buy the item for you and/or deliver your item to you, but they'd have to travel the distance in one way or another.
Also, even if there's auction houses, they should most definitely take a cut and make it so that in one way or another items bought and sold there are more expensive than if you bought it directly, they should also be fairly localized, so you can't just go to some random auction house and buy literally any item up for sale in any auction house in the whole game.
One of the main reasons for this is that it would give merchants a way to make profits by transporting and buying and selling goods, and if there's caravans moving around then they need to be protected from monsters, evil NPCs and players. Encourage development of villages and towns in places with rare resources, and all kinds of stuff.
Oh and this one would probably be unpopular if you just asked around, but players has to drop loot and lose exp on death, and also some kind of revival penalty so they don't just die over and over again without consequence in for example a siege battle or guild war.
You wouldn't need to lose a lot on death, maybe even just a chance would be enough, but there should be a risk of even losing an equipped item. Ofc evil/red name players would have an even higher chance of dropping loot and even more of it than regular players.
Oh and this video just reminded me, but flying mounts should definitely be rare. Maybe even permadeath like in some of the novels like Rebirth of the Thief.
p.s. for some reason when I try to write novels nothing comes out, but random MMORPG topics I can write on and on without an end...
Gotta remember those nostalgia days, where you can pay everything with daily tix. Ever since Erik.Cassel lost his fight with cancer, Roblox start going downhill.
Just say your prayer bruh, EA is definitely going to kill Square Enix.
Gamers are the greatest.
Debated I personally like kh and ff7
just port gmod into vr lmao
