Game developer in schoolFollow

Since you're a budding game developer who's interested in MMORPG's, you should join the community here to read and talk with gamers, too.

You'd get credibility that could lead to more interest in your blog, a chance to share ideas and see how players feel about the site's supported games, and expand your network.

As is, single post advertisements are not well-received here.

Edited, Jun 16th 2011 9:42pm by Eske

Your response helps a lot I know it reads like a scatter brained blog at the moment and I plan on adjusting that in later posts. The idea for these few introduction posts was to get the general idea out more in depth details about the game world, progresstion, and all of that will come. I understand that the 3 levels idea is not well worded, and I know all game devs say to not make it grindy I gusse I should of put it as "try to mot make it grindy." In all honesty it's hard to not make a RPG grindy you level up fight bosses make/get gear. Running on that I more meant to say funner styles of quests, solo instanced storyline dunegons.

And yes I know my writing skills suck I'm in class all day and I'm busted on every error and I don't mind them on my blog just because it feels like a bit of an escape. And no I did not justify the flaws as I should have, in general im a shy person and it shows in my writing because I feel if i dig too deep people will take it as an attack on MMO's and I really don't want it to be about me writing with a ego like "im the best my game rules all other MMO's suck"

Again thank you for your honesty and even though you said your not good at it you have encouraged me to do better in later posts thank you :)

Unless they have a lot of ownership in the company, most game devs are not in it for the money. It's actually a pretty underpaid/overworked position (for someone with coding experience). And again, clean spelling and grammar is really a must for any blog.

Don't take his comments too hard. It's just we get a lot of people asking us for favors, and they can be fairly rude and selfish about it. We used to get an advertisement for a student doing an MMORPG research survey about every two weeks. They post their survey and then if we helped they'd never say thanks or never post the results.

So we're a little wary of people whose first post is asking us for a favor. Though, by posting back in this thread you've already been more courteous than most.

I'm fairly interested game design, and specifically MMORPG design myself. If you keep updating your blog and make sure to bump this thread every so often (daily probably would be a bad idea, but maybe after 3 new blog posts would be good), then I'll probably have an opinion for you about what you've written.

You should have been in WoW General in the last month or so. Apparently some yahoo in Denver made his research and writing class about WoW, so we got flooded.

Now we just have to wait until December to see what this douche has his class do next!

A new post on the blog has been added inspired by the help you guys gave me. It is a clean up post to help answer some of the questions and faults pointed out. Thank you guys for the help :)

The second part of the combat system direction posts has been put up, will be a few days before the next post on the blog since I am taking summer classes at school and they are very fast pace. So while I'm studying and programming please feel free to comment on here or the blog. This is where feedback is most important because the combat system defines a MMORPGs gameplay value. As I stated in the first post of the combat system the different aspects will feel a little undefined since true concept of a combat system can't start untill a game goes into production just the general direction of it can really be thought of and planned. Thank you so much to the people who have given feedback you guys have been a big help and keep it flowing. I have learned a lot as a rookie developer from you guys :)

I get ya haha you hit the nail on the head. I have been told by more people I know personaly that making a MMO is a bad idea and I'm usaly told to build apps for the android market o.O The fact that you and a few others have encouraged me sent a bolt of excitement and I do just wanna rapidly throw ideas out. The idea and the still brewing ideas for this MMO have been going for a looooong time and the fact that people are getting even the smallest amount of intrested makes me happy. What I'm not happy about is I failed as a developer to present more basic ideas before getting into the full blow concept of the game play. I will take your very well written feedback into thought and since I split the combat system post ito parts rather than a big post I can easly start back on more basic areas then continue the combat system when the time is right. The truth is I LOVE developing games I have about 16 single player game concepts written and over the years have a ton of ideas for the MMO. I was about 9 when i was sending nintendo ideas about pokemon style games hahaha not realizeing a email with ideas where not how games where made. I have also made some fun games that class mates liked that where built in 48 hours for homework. MMOs are huge as you know and being a single person I do have alot of pressure when it comes down to how to present it. The hard thing about going more into the game world is even over many years due to school, real life events it is still in it's baby steps. I will go more into why I am doing this and will slow down the train of posts(again as you said I'm just excited and love what I do and thank god for giving me the knowladge to do so.) Since I have crap loads of homework to do over the next few days I will spend a hour a few days organizeing my next post in fact I like your lay out you offered. You have helped me learn and thank you for being blunt in your post. on a last note thanks for the complament on the fractured world setting feels good to have someone say "I like that idea."

Thanks, Ayn Rand.

I have started a basic out line of my next post and I'm currently getting thoughts put on paper going to go into more about me and why I want to make a MMORPG, but wanted to get a general idea for this post and future posts of what people want and will help bring it more into view.
Q 1: about me and why I have this dream.
What would you like to learn about me and why I want to make a MMORPG?
Q 2: the game world "Selethra"
What would you like to learn about the game world it's basic structure as a whole? Or spread it into several posts such as one being about the earthen realm then the next about the dream realm and so on.
These will help me get more clear and focused info out to you if you are intrested in the blog thank you for all of the help. :)

I was actually writing out a design Doc around this idea of an MMO.

I posted on your blog something I think that is important. As far as story goes, FFXI has delivered some of the best quest driven gameplay of any MMO I've ever played. When you start the game, you are not THE GREAT CHOSEN ONE WHO LEADS OUR GREAT ARMIES BLA BLA BLAH. You are just a commoner looking to make a fortune. The main arch of the game starts you off doing menial tasks, and you slowly build reputation to receive more prestigious tasks. The point is that half quests or stories in the game, the game makes sure that you know you are nothing in particular or special, but because you are obscure, they can have you do these tasks and not disrupt the balance of the nations.

I love it. There is nothing quite like NOT being the savior of the world unlike every other modern MMO that has been released in the past 7 years.

As far as other aspects MMO's:

For PvP in a fantasy MMO, Aion was some of the most fun I've ever had. I hate PvP in most MMOs, but being there for the start of Aion, before everyone was capped, it was fun. Being able to lure a person in a direction and have your friends attack from behind was a riot. overall, I think the concept of the PvP was great, but it had some flaws that showed up once large groups hit End game and got bored. IMO, PvP games either need to be segregated by level allow leveling very quickly with minimal amount of effort put towards the level grind and more focus on the gear grind. I could live with not having the most optimal equipment, but being 10 levels under the cap and not doing any damage to those at cap in an completely open PvP area was sorta lame.

PvE combat: XI takes the cake for challenging PvE combat. Leveling was a *****, but the Level restricted boss battles (bcnm's) and such were something else. It was fun and exciting.

Crafting: Runescape all the way :o

But seriously, runescape had some good crafting options, though they wouldn't work in other MMO's. The basis of the economy was that you WOULD lose all your gear every couple of days and need more of it. But for it's simplicity and inter connectivity, it was a good system. IMO. Also, the skills were individually leveled in the same manner as leveling combat skills. The constant loss of equipment and the need to replace it is something to be desired in an MMO i think. I liked crafting in XI because you couldn't gather X materials and get the levels all the time. Then again, I enjoyed logging and mining, so I might just be weird.

Factions:

**** em. it failed in Aion. It will fail in rift.

Social ideas for MMO's I think could work well:


Clans - Groups of players who quest together under a single name. Clans must pay a fee to be recognized by the state and gain recognition among the citizens. A lose alliance, players would be able to operate under as many clans as he or she chose to. There would be not hierarchy except for the sponsor, the individual within the clan that pays the acknowledgement tax to the state.

Guilds - Officially recognized as an part of a city or town, a Guild is a step up from a clan. To become a guild, an official hierarchy must be submitted to the state. Guilds have many perks, including a share of the taxes gathered from merchants in towns under your city's sphere of influence. Guilds also would have each their own guild hall or commons for guild members, something to decorate. A guild would also gain access to a guild board, a board where citizens post daily quests of varying difficulty that can be taken up by guild members. Completed a quest will gain your guild reputation, while failing one will hurt it's reputation. Available quests and level of difficulty depend on the reputation of the guild.

Once you become a member of a guild, anything you do will reflect back upon your guild. You will no longer be able to take part in clan activities.


This system would be similar to XI's conquest system, where leveling in an area and gaining Xp with a spell from the city guard will gain points that change which nation controls which areas, and thus what items are sold in each city. The idea is a bit different though. Guilds could only belong to cities. A city is the capitol of a nation. Towns and villages are divided all over, and each controls different natural resources in the area. These items in the area would always be available in the village, but if your city has a strong influence over the town, the town will send those items to market in that city.

I also thought it would be fun if guilds could stake reputation on a town in order to shift it's allegiance if they wanted to. Like, reputation would literally be a political currency you could spend to gain a stake in a town. Town NPC's would sell their normal items, taxed by the city they are allied with, and then the guilds of a town would get a % cut out of the taxes. Guilds would literally fight over towns where great crafting supplies are located.

Other things to make guilds more interesting: Allow the most reputable guild to have a place in the town square. Their guild hall would be part of the in game map, and the commons a part of the public area. Also, have this guild's banner be used along lamp posts or something along the town's main road.

anyhow, if you've ever seen the anime, Fairy Tale, think of guilds as something like the ones in that show. They are not affiliated with the government, but the reputation of the guild greatly affects the reputation of the town.

You could even have guilds of other nations fight each other over towns if they both stake reputation in a town or village.

anyhow,