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A true "MMORPG". Back in the day when the genre was new, people were fascinated by the potential of virtual worlds and virtual societies. Social scientists did

by hooby 4y ago

A true "MMORPG". Back in the day when the genre was new, people were fascinated by the potential of virtual worlds and virtual societies. Social scientists did online studies on player behavior and the interactions people had online, on spontaneous self-governance coming into existence, on how communities formed and developed, and many other similar topics. That potential was never fulfilled. Today - some twenty years later - the MMORPG has become a genre of checking off boxes and making numbers go up, along a linear way as laid out by the developers for you. Apart from PvP and maybe some forced grouping, most games would play absolutely identical mechanically, if you were playing all alone on your own private server. You'd do the same quests, fight the same enemies, get the same loot. All the other players you get to meet online - they don't actually influence the game mechanics at all. You play next to each other. Not actually with each other. I'd like to see a game, where the sum of players (and their interactions) are greater than just the sum of it's parts. A game with a virtual economy, a virtual society, etc. - that advance and evolve in a player-driven fashion. A simulated game world that dynamically adapts. Some glimpses of this sort of thing can be seen in games like EvE. Old games (pre-WoW) like UO and SWG had some of that magic as well - but were marred by limitations of the technology of the day. This kind of stuff has evolved very, very little since then. I would assume that with today's technology we should be able to get a lot closer to fulfilling that potential.

joshlemer 4y ago
There are probably a number of MineCraft servers that achieve this. Back about 10 years ago there was the /r/CivCraft server. Not sure which ones are active now, but it did feel like a real world with a real economy, since there were even shops you could set up to sell materials for a price. You had to be careful who you piss off also, since people could be "jailed" in the ender world. There was a large element of alliance making / political process in the game since you have strength in numbers.
- hooby 4y ago
  Minecraft is indeed a great example of a game pushing the envelope on player freedom - and allowing emergent gameplay. Tip of the hat to you, good sir! Still, Minecraft is pretty limited mechanically. The game doesn't actually recognize any of the stuff you mention. The games' mechanics - all the technological progression and stuff - work perfectly fine in single-player. Also the number of players per server isn't quite on MMO levels... But yes, some elements of Minecraft would be great ingredients of the game I'm proposing.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    > The game doesn't actually recognize any of the stuff you mention. With mods, it does.
  - a1369209993 4y ago
    > The game doesn't actually recognize any of the stuff you mention. To be fair, neither does real life. Real life shops, jails, etc, are just collections of atoms with certain emergent properties resulting from how players have set them up.
- gigaflop 4y ago
  I haven't heard that name in a very long time. Tell me, what town did you mainly reside in? I was over in Chiapas with the crazy leftists, one of whom erected a wool statue of himself. We were largely untouched by the HCF invasion, except for when their skirmishes with the World Police got close to our borders. I offer you this classic, and hope you recognize it: https://youtu.be/BAzsolKHJfc https://youtu.be/BAzsolKHJfc
  - joshlemer 4y ago
    Yep I remember that like it was yesterday! If I remember correctly, in the Civ 1.0 map I hung out a lot in Haven and in Mt Augusta
    - gigaflop 4y ago
      Mt Augusta was a little before my time. By the time I got into the server, it honestly felt like one of the most difficult places to get settled into. Crowded, property costs too high, chaotic. Dirty Ancaps everywhere. </s> I'm pretty sure it was somewhere between late 1.0 and early 2.0, but I ended up in Carson City for a bit when it was coming online. Where they made a hole in the ocean, and turned into a city. A fun place to hang out and talk shit. Do you have any 2d world maps of that era?
      - joshlemer 4y ago
        Sorry can't find any 2d world maps from the time, I'm sure there are plenty on the subreddit if you go looking :-)
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I remember playing on towny servers years ago and holy crap that was fun. The kingdoms and roles, and wars managed to be more immersive than games based around that concept (cough bannerlord)
- infogulch 4y ago
  The best Minecraft MMORPG I've seen is Monumenta ( https://playmonumenta.com/ https://playmonumenta.com/ ), which is made in the spirit of Complete The Monument (CTM) maps like Ragecraft (which is also a great experience!). A good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEK-djlOkqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEK-djlOkqE
skellera 4y ago
Can I piggyback on yours? A true FPSMMORPG. Closest thing we have to this with a good community is Destiny. I wish for fully open worlds, good storylines and everything you said. I believe that was the original idea with the project that became Overwatch but sad it didn’t pan out. I understand that level building and all is much harder when the expectation of detail is higher in FPS but hopefully that gets easier with better tools. I would think that it’s still Bungie’s ultimate goal. Hopefully Destiny can evolve into that. Whatever game does it right, has the potential to be one of the biggest games ever.
- hooby 4y ago
  I don't particularly care whether it's first person or some other perspective. Whether it's a shooter (or some other form of combat) isn't really relevant to my point either. Open world yes - that's totally an ingredient that goes in there. Storylines rather not. The thing is that storylines are pre-written, canned content that's just identical for every player that consumes it. In order to fit my bill, the "plot" of the game would actually have to be defined by what players are doing (and the game simulation reacting to that) - it would have to emerge dynamically. Saga of Ryzom originally tried to go a little bit along those lines, but due to the technological constraints of the day, the game world would have to evolve through updates/patches mostly.
  - kaetemi 4y ago
    The issue with SoR was not really technological constraints. More budgetary and time constraints, and the people who had the creative vision left shortly after release. The commercial game is now run by a finance guy and a web developer, pretty much. Neither of which seem to be interested in pursuing the original more daring vision. The tech is definitely capable of being expanded into a real dynamic world. What you see in the game right now is effectively auto generated placeholder content that got rushed in to have a deliverable by release. Imagine if the tribes and mobs actually moved their locations dynamically, instead of being in the same spots eternally. Players could help out tribes, supply routes for trading goods between tribes would need to be maintained, mob populations would be affected by player activity, etc.
- 4y ago
skocznymroczny 4y ago
Some persistent world NWN servers might fit the bill. Some are heavy on roleplaying, and are more of chat servers with optional combat rather than a traditional MMO setting.
- hooby 4y ago
  NWN is a great example as well. It's imho quite underrated/overlooked how ground-breaking that game was, considering it's editor- and GM-tools. It's a bit too static though, to fit the bill of what I'm longing for. Needs less pre-made modules, more dynamic simulation - so that the game world actually evolves in response to what players are doing. ;)
overthemoon 4y ago
I agree. The beef I would add with those games is that they feel like theme parks. There's no real frontier. Elite Dangerous came close, it was a thrill to be the first one in a system. Genuinely don't know how you'd solve that, though. One obstacle you have to overcome is that there has to be an investment that is risked by the players. There's not much of a cost to gank someone usually, or it's simply not allowed at all except in a controlled way. One thing that forces people into social cooperation is to protect against the potential for loss. As I understand it, confrontations with other players in EVE Online are dangerous because of that investment of time and/or money. That's part of what makes roguelikes and battle royales so compelling. That said, you have to balance it against being appealing enough to more casual players--how do you encourage investment without making it a boring grind or too expensive?
- hooby 4y ago
  There are other ways next to protection against loss. SWG for example had all items being player-made in addition to slowly loosing durability and breaking eventually. That means, instead of finding loot you can then use indefinitely, you were dependent on economy supply chains. SWG also made you dependent on player services - like doctors, entertainers and such. I think there could easily be many casual friendly playstyles, like farming, harvesting, herding, entertaining, being mayor in a player city, etc. - in addition to more combat oriented play. Players should be able to choose one style or the other, or mix and match to their liking. And every such playstyle should both need and provide "stuff" from/to other playstyles on a regular basis.
- munk-a 4y ago
  Elite Dangerous is one of the most fulfilling grungy space sims I've ever played. I'm not much of one for the dog fighting side of things, but I do keep coming back to Elite to just do cargo runs or swap over to an Adder and push myself into the dark - scooping fuel off suns and try to avoid space hazards while just ogling the beautiful scenery. It is a very strange "game" though, so I understand why it's not for everyone.
sillysaurusx 4y ago
The problem is, games like that aren’t fun. It’s been tried. Imagine coming home from work and hopping online to go do your second job. A virtual economy implies work. And unless there’s something to hook people in, no one wants to do that work. Hence you end up with the quest grind and the dopamine trail. If you can find a way out, I imagine it would be very lucrative. But it’s not really a technology problem.
- nicce 4y ago
  I would argue that this is the exact problem of current modern games. The parent is suggesting something alternative, fun with other people. Almost every current MMORPG is oriented on getting that virtual cash or other currency up in virtual economy, to make some linear progression for pre-defined ending.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    I haven’t been into MMOs in a long time, but years ago, I remember desperately trying to find a good one, but I found that not only do a lot of them have some grindy linear progression, but even worse was it was always so limited. I got sick of games that looked amazing but had basically no content.
    - Scarblac 4y ago
      Puzzle Pirates was the best game ever for a number of years. An MMO without experience points or levels. Everything powered by puzzle games. Ships operate by people playing the sailing game, the bilging game, the carpentry game, the gunning game and the navigation game. On a tiny ship a good player can do it on their own by switching rapidly, but almost always, you need a crew of people working together, up to 100+ people on very large ships. Your skill in the game decides how much you contribute to the ship's performance. To improve, you must actually improve. Ships can fight other ships (in two minigames, one before boarding and one after), a whole fleet can fight another fleet for control over an island, with 1000+ people involved, in another game. And the in game economy was really elaborate, and worked well. Again, based on people doing games in jobs. Of course, people got immensely rich and could buy things you could not. Namely, some colors for clothes and ship paint were much rarer and more expensive than other colors; black came from kraken blood and was most expensive. So you could see who was rich, but it didn't affect gameplay. Of course being able to supply a fleet of ships and thousands of cannon balls to threaten an island did, but only if you could also get hundreds of people working those ships for you.
swilliamsio 4y ago
The Mount & Blade Warband Persistent World mod servers are like this. All equipment and resources have to be mined, crafted, and used by players, and the only gameplay was player interactions - trade, banditry, war. Amazingly good fun when you're on the right servers with the right people. No idea if its still active or not.
kaetemi 4y ago
Look for the Ryzom Core Discord or IRC chat. There's a couple of us in the open source community hoping to build such a thing, based on an existing MMO codebase and assets. The key point is that all missions should be impactful on the world, and not merely reward oriented. We have the tech for an MMORPG. We've been working on simplifying the onboarding curve for new contributors first. In a few months we can start exploring game mission mechanics. :)
bcrosby95 4y ago
It's never gonna be a AAA game. The broader market just doesn't want this, and you'll need the broader market if its a AAA game. New World hit on some of these points at one point, but they backed down pretty fast. Ashes of Creation may or may not hit some of these points. But that game is... overly ambitious, to say the least. They're trying to go full tilt on everything and I'm skeptical as to whether it's gonna work out well in the end.
omgketchup 4y ago
God I miss the glory days of Ultima Online.
newobj 4y ago
Ever heard of A Tale In The Desert? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_in_the_Desert https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_in_the_Desert
- yvdriess 4y ago
  Yes! It's amazing that it is still going.
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Oh man, I loved this game almost 20 years ago. My friend and I started building on the side of a pond far away from everyone. We would get home from school and tie our house phone to our heads with our dad's tube socks so we could stay in constant communication while we collected resources and build up our enterprise.
zokier 4y ago
In terms of mmorpgs, I'd love to see a game with actual human GMs behind the scenes enabling players to have far more latitude in their actions. I'm envisioning something like a cross of EVE and tabletop rpgs.
- munk-a 4y ago
  You should check out MUDs - MUDs (being entirely text based) are easy for any old person to modify and create within... no texture or graphics work - just writing. As a result a lot of MUDs have extremely dynamic worlds that have large ongoing plots being managed by the GMs.
- tagami 4y ago
  The old Ultima Online had GMs pop in and create quests and random events. Non-scalable, but - oh - so much fun
  - lrem 4y ago
    "Non-scalable" is a rather medium excuse though. There's quite a few ways around this: 1. Raise prices enough to employ enough humans. I imagine there's quite a few people out there who'd be happy to spend a pint's price on a quality gaming experience. 2. Give the GM better tools. Higher level half-scripted events + better sentiment monitoring. I imagine a single competent GM can run in parallel a bunch of events keeping quite a few players engaged. 3. Recruit experienced players to do this job for you. I imagine there's quite a few people who'd do this job for in-game goods, as long as an hour of GM-ing gives a couple hours worth of grind of goods.
- snikeris 4y ago
  Gemstone IV does this.
- petewailes 4y ago
  Currently building this. We're launching in August.
  - 4y ago
worker767424 4y ago
> a genre of checking off boxes and making numbers go up, along a linear way as laid out by the developers for you Feels like a FAANG job
michaelbrave 4y ago
I've heard of some success with this where people using mods on minecraft to implement economies on private servers. But yes, sandbox MMO's were a different beast than the themepark MMO's we have today, I had high hopes for Everquest Next when it was announced (like ten years ago now) but it ended up vaporware I guess, and that was the last I've heard of anyone actually trying. I guess metaverse might count but I've mostly ignored anything that facebook tries to do.
mikkergp 4y ago
Expanding on your idea, I thought it would be interesting to have an MMORPG with multiple completely different clients. The easiest example might be in a future/sci-fi game, you have a normal game client for people moving around the game, and a Stock market client for people who want to play the stock market in the game. You could have a business simulation client as well maybe for shop keepers. Maybe a news website to try and bridge the gap between them all, but you could play one game (the stock market game) while never logging into the First Person "MMO" client but you're completely integrated. If you could think of a number of these different clients, I think it would be interesting.
- happimess 4y ago
  I love this idea for so many games, but I'll try to stay on topic. From elsewhere in thread, heavily snipped: games like that aren’t fun. It’s been tried. [...] hopping online to go do your second job [...] implies work [...] no one wants to do that work I wouldn't want to do data entry in an FPS game, no, but people love "bakery simulator" type resource management games. It would be cool to link my grocery-line-time-waster score into my overworld bank account, enabling me to shop around for gear in stores set up (but not manually run) by other players, to use in the FPS portion of the game where I steal morsels from the full-sized humans (or am I getting my threads confused?).
- wincy 4y ago
  EVE tried this with Eve Online + Dust 514 which was a PS3 exclusive. There were cool concepts like having your space ships show up to air strike the planet as they were fighting on the surface. It was interesting but ultimately Dust felt extremely low stakes in the world of EVE. I can’t really speak to its other problems I only tried it once or twice.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    Yeah, I imagine a challenge would be making a second really fun game in a different genre from the first. The different 'games' would probably have to be relatively lightweight and lean into the fact that it's the interaction that is the fun part. Having a space MMO developer somehow land a super popular AAA FPS would be near impossible. I like how the battlefield games let you fly airplanes, but then it's not really a full blow flight simulator.
jayd16 4y ago
Most popular MMOs do have healthy economies and virtual cultures. You do need to participate though. If party play is enforced then party members certainly do affect game mechanics. Maybe you want a pvp focused MMO? Maybe something like PlanetSide with more of an economy? Either that or maybe you want some big story points influenced by players? Honestly I think you'd probably be disappointed unless you are personally part of the group that made the influential change. That takes a lot of investment as the mechanic would either be pvp or feel like its on rails. Maybe you just want an RP wow server and a guild that is into grinding for Glam/RP loot according to their own stories? I don't see how it's a technical problem at all. It sounds like your major issues are with story telling. Can you explain what technology you think is missing?
1980phipsi 4y ago
What about an MMORPG with Chronotrigger-like features where two or three players together can do a special move.
wardedVibe 4y ago
So the largest public server (white tiger) for the game eco https://play.eco/ https://play.eco/ might scratch that itch.
rococode 4y ago
I have high hopes for the upcoming MMORPG from Riot Games (maker of League of Legends/Valorant/Legends of Runeterra/Wild Rift). So far all of their new games have been very solid entrants in their respective genres. They have consistently had strong storytelling and art/design throughout their games, and they've mentioned there will be a focus on co-op content in the RPG. It's probably still several years away, though. That said, I think part of the problem is that we've all gotten older, and no one has time to spend 5+ hours a day in a game world anymore. The younger generation may be able to experience it, but for those of us who have memories of old MMOs, it's unlikely we'll ever truly relive those nostalgia-filled moments.
vorpalhex 4y ago
These aren't quite true MMOs but will scale up to 40+ people online at once, with totally emergent social structures: + Rust + Ark + Conan Exiles
- staindk 4y ago
  I think the recently-released V Rising could be added to that list as well. Seems a great game.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Can confirm. Is excellent.
Freeboots 4y ago
I have a MUD open right now in another window. I still play it because despite the lack of graphics, the freedoms of player interaction are interesting and far beyond whats available in modern open world games. Attack a same side player? Sure! You might get warranted by the local militia (which may or may not have real players in it), but you can do it. Pickpocket players? Sure. Change sides mid fight? Yep. Be a spy or mole for the enemy? Chase people down in 'safe zones'? Completely ignore PvP? All up to you. Another thing i really like is looting. If you die, anyone can grab gear from your corpse. If the enemy get it, you're gear is gone. Theres no perma death in this particular Mud, but losing gear adds stakes to PvP. It also means gear is a real in game commodity, but also people dont get too precious about it. Die in the fight? Reequip asap and get back out there.
- munk-a 4y ago
  MUDs are a class of game that is terribly underrated. I've played on a few different one (mostly toward the RP focused end of things) but I think the whole family of games shows just how effective imagination can be when coupled solely with text descriptions. I have extremely strong memories from Shadows of Isildur[1] and met my spouse there! 1. http://www.middle-earth.us/ http://www.middle-earth.us/
- agweber 4y ago
  All of your points also exist in Renaissance era Ultima Online. There are a number of custom shards with playerbases that want this exact experience.
  - Freeboots 4y ago
    Yup! Ultima is another great game from when they were still 'figuring out' open world games, before they became stale.
lubesGordi 4y ago
I think the constraint here is that you need people to create novel objects with novel functionality in the virtual world and then sell them to have an economy. That might be tricky but if you could solve it well then, your imagination is the limit.
- munk-a 4y ago
  If people love the world they'll be happy to make things without financial recompense. Lots of folks used to run RP guilds in WoW and other games with entire worlds constructed out of whole cloth - if you build a flexible system and supply the players then DMs will emerge and create gameplay within the world - just like D&D DMs get into it for the fun alone.
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discardedrefuse 4y ago
Lots of games have dedicated "role-play" servers. When I read your comment i instantly thought of this: https://www.polygon.com/22512951/gta-online-new-day-role-play-server-state-election-san-andreas-los-santos https://www.polygon.com/22512951/gta-online-new-day-role-pla... Conan Exiles is another game that has RP servers of a different variety.
mustacheemperor 4y ago
You might enjoy Eco. It's not quite an MMO, but it is a multiplayer game that can have large server populations where everyone must work together to advance through a collective "tech tree". It starts very similarly to a Minecraft playthrough, but has a much deeper cooperative progression of advancing different trades and resource gathering methods until the server can construct a laser cannon to destroy the meteor en route to impact the planet. There are also pollution and environmental mechanics, and diplomacy and collective governance. So you may have a player who produces lots of ore, but poisons the oceans to do so, and other players can collectively lobby to restrict that through the government. But at the same time, everyone must rely on the production of ore to further advance the tech tree. It can be a lot of fun with the right group of people. There's also a lot of flexibility for adjusting the game's parameters, so you can make it work with 2 people or 20 so that everyone needs to work together but the tasks don't seem insurmountable. It's one of the most novel and interesting multiplayer game concepts I've played in recent memory.
Forgeties79 4y ago
I’m not sure how WoW isn’t/wasn’t just ticking off boxes? That’s all MMORPG’s ever basically. “Go here, kill boars, bring me 5 of their tusks. By the way it’s a 25% drop rate so really you’re killing ~20. Oh and they’re often by themselves across a large area. Oh and other players need the same amount too so you’re competing for the kills. Oh and there are baby boars harassing you that don’t count. Oh and there’s no quest marker until you’re mini map can see it so it’s going to take you 10min of wandering around a featureless field before you know you’re in their spawn area. As obnoxious as I’m being, the thrust of basically any MMORPG is grinding hours of boring tasks to get minutes of awesome time with the fruits of your labor. That’s how they make you stick around - roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. You remove the grind (d3 auction house) and you remove your players.
- astrange 4y ago
  FFXIV doesn’t really have mandatory grind. They instead make the main story actually good (better than most other FF games) and so people will buy the expansion packs even if they don’t stick around every other month.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - Forgeties79 4y ago
    I agree but there’s a reason I didn’t say “literally every MMORPG does this.” FFXIV definitely stands out as a notable exception. SE is also big enough that they don’t need FFXIV to generate insane revenue to justify its existence, and good on them for making good use of that. It’s a profitable title that has also built them a lot of good will as a company, good will that’s been sorely needed lately. My point is, most MMORPGs depend on giving you relatively simple tasks but finding ways to make them take three hours.
EarthLaunch 4y ago
I have been trying to make one like this for a decade, kind of a next-gen UO. Right now it's big ideas and the beginnings of a world. I'm not promoting it but feel free to take a look! I have a discord for discussing these games as well, though it's not active.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
This is basically what people mean by The Metaverse. Digital cash + social interaction + player created environment and content. Getting all three of those right will be a big winner since it will literally mean the creation of a second world that people can inhabit. I don't think it's possible without any of those three elements.
softcactus 4y ago
Check out Foxhole. There's one server with thousands of people fighting on one map in a massive war. All weapons, ammunition, structures, etc are built by players from mined resources. The "High Command" Discords for each faction have their own internal tools used for gathering intel with computer vision and stuff. There's also a live map of the war: https://foxholestats.com/ https://foxholestats.com/
brokencode 4y ago
I think it’d be cool if all the players in a server are part of a country in a constantly changing state of warfare and alliance with other countries in a huge world. Where your goal is not to level up, but to participate in actions that expand your homeland or fend off invaders or expand your economy. The larger and wealthier your country becomes, the more you become a threat to other powerful nations who will want to stamp you out. Or maybe there would be revolutions, alien invaders, etc. if you become too powerful. Alternatively, if the players of the realm fail to defend their lands or make peace with their enemies, they might be conquered and forced to live under another empire, fighting their wars and paying high taxes, until one day they can scheme to win their independence again. Of course, this does essentially mean your world can become irreparably messed up, but that’s life. Maybe people would give up on a server and move on to a new world with new ambitions about how they can do better next time.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> Old games (pre-WoW) like UO and SWG had some of that magic as well - but were marred by limitations of the technology of the day. Tibia too. It used to be an extremely social game. Everything was hard so people had to play together. It's been modernized and made much easier, nowadays it feels like the magic is gone. The changes began with restrictions on player killing and spiralled from there.
gfaregan 4y ago
I can see a couple of obstacles: Complex simulation based mechanics are much harder to implement than more basic fighting mechanics. Puzzles require more work and hand crafting than creating new monsters to kill. The whole project is probably more work, harder to scale, and has an unproven audience.
muzani 4y ago
"Id like to see a game, where the sum of players (and their interactions) are greater than just the sum of it's parts. A game with a virtual economy, a virtual society, etc. - that advance and evolve in a player-driven fashion. A simulated game world that dynamically adapts." This describe Soulforged perfectly: https://play.soulforged.net/ https://play.soulforged.net/ It's funny but if you drop by the Discord, we've been having lengthy conversations yesterday on why this might not be fun. The short of it is that it hurts solo players and individualism. Communes are extremely powerful and necessary for progress. There are also certain professions that are popular (like mining) but gated because of the rarity of mining picks. So a lot of people give up on their mining dreams for the greater good. The mining problem was patched just this morning, but solo gameplay is still a problem - you need to be part of some group to get anywhere. The other major problem with a sandbox is many have no idea where to continue. They chop wood poles and then chop higher level wood and making housing from that. And then don't really have much to aspire for other than hoarding wealth. So the dev is adding quest-like features: one classic MMO quest system and a player based system, where people can pay for say, ore, or a rare material found from certain beasts. But the world is based a lot on the players, from settlements to the name of materials. If you guys plan on joining, civilization is past the river. Head south outside the tutorial cave, then keep moving NE past the bridge. The roads are also player built but nobody got around to making roads for the newbies.
- muzani 4y ago
  On a bit of a tangent, there was a prequel. A plague hit - it was very annoying but lethality was low. Half the player base decided to quarantine. There was a route west, which involved a dangerous swamp and a climb up a mountain that most newbies couldn't make if they didn't have the right buffs. New citizens would be escorted to the mountain, quarantined for 4 days, then buffed so they could cross it. The other group was the "gains" group. They figured out that sparring increased stats rapidly and they could buff stats to the point where the disease was no longer a problem. So then there was a PvE war with the orcs, which hit an uneasy peace, where the player base decided to just give tribute of weapons and armor to them. A third faction spawned, the orc sympathisers, who snuck more steel weapons to the copper age orcs. A smith player unlocked the orc race this way and black market emerged trading iron to the orcs. The gains faction were uneasy with this and broke the peace treaty. The rest of the game, unhappy with breaking a treaty, moved west. The gains faction conquered the orcs. The orc god was impressed and there was a party involving player-crafted beer, and a brawl with a god that increased someone's dodge skills to superhuman levels. The orcs were assimilated and they created a warrior-murderhobo faction in the north. They took on small territory, near a rich mine and some rare leathers used in armour. By the end of the game, everyone up north including chicken farmers had the highest tier swords. The isolationist faction had a larger block of land and established trading relations with the dwarves. They got access to many of the remaining dungeons and artifact zones. Sadly the game died shortly after, because of tech debt, server costs, and a burnt out player base. After a year, it was rebuilt into what became Soulforged today.
KVFinn 4y ago
This is happening right now, but in small MMOs, usually with 128 or 256 maximum players online. Most common in heavily modded Minecraft servers, but also in many other games. There are also some roleplaying focused servers in games like GTA5 or Rust, which generally reset much more quickly. Also see this game, ECO: https://store.steampowered.com/app/382310/Eco/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/382310/Eco/ listen to first 10 minutes of this podcast: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/brad-will-made-a-tech-pod/79-a-subsidiary-of-starko-industries/ https://podtail.com/en/podcast/brad-will-made-a-tech-pod/79-...
ehnto 4y ago
I would be in your views on it's economy and settlments gameplay in SWG. In some ways, Star Citizen may shape out to be a good replacement for SWG, if settlements, economy and manufacturing come out well there would be scenarios that aren't possible without an organisation or cooperation and real benefits to being part of a settlement. Think manufacturing pipelines and trading routes that can't be handled by one person. There are also ships you couldn't possibly fly and afford on your own, capital ships and the like. The caveat to a game like that, is it lives and dies by it's player count. You really want to be on the bandwagon when it kicks off.
dwd 4y ago
Some of the browser based games like Travian, Inselkampf and OGame had similar meta games like Eve Online where the diplomacy, alliance management and game tool building took up far more time than the actual game. They were for all intents social constructs with the game as the centre point. I'm looking to build a new version with different scenarios but it is the social aspect that makes them so compelling.
Spartan22 4y ago
I'm currently building a game like this and it's pretty close to finish. The game is a Space Survival MMORPG that takes place far into the future, where human civilization is stranded in an O'Neill Cylinder in space. No one in the cylinder knows anymore how they got there and why they are there in the first place since so much time has passed. Technology has also been lost due to the very long time periods, so life and survival is tough in the cylinder. However, the longer someone survives, the stronger and the more rare their character becomes. We expect only a few percent of players to survive for longer than a couple of weeks and only 1% for longer than a month. However, those that have survived for longer than a month are very strong characters that can usually lead and provide protection to a village of 50 to several hundred people. The biggest danger to the player are other players, since the entire game is PvP. This means, you need to quickly band up with others to protect against other players. There are no guns in the game, since there is no technology in the cylinder, so it takes several minutes of beating someone up to to actually get their health to zero. There is also voice chat, so it's quite brutal. Here is our teaser trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg4GHUIXB8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg4GHUIXB8U and here is some pre-alpha gameplay footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFHzg0R8sUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFHzg0R8sUo. We'll likely be able to go into early access in June on Steam, it would be great to get your feedback on it!
- dukes82 4y ago
  Gives me rendevous with rama vibes!
  - Spartan22 4y ago
    That's the one! :)
tsuujin 4y ago
For me, this is a role that MUDs used to fill. Text-based online games with player driven governments, economies, and theologies. You, as a person, could work your way up a ladder to be a renown combatant, or diplomat, or merchant; but, none of that had any value if not for the other people playing the game. You got dropped off in a virtual world and truly had agency to play a role. Ultimately as I got older they became too much of a time sink and I just can’t play them anymore, but back in my high school days they were an absolute blast.

by hooby 4y ago

joshlemer 4y ago

There are probably a number of MineCraft servers that achieve this. Back about 10 years ago there was the /r/CivCraft server. Not sure which ones are active now, but it did feel like a real world with a real economy, since there were even shops you could set up to sell materials for a price. You had to be careful who you piss off also, since people could be "jailed" in the ender world. There was a large element of alliance making / political process in the game since you have strength in numbers.

hooby 4y ago
Minecraft is indeed a great example of a game pushing the envelope on player freedom - and allowing emergent gameplay. Tip of the hat to you, good sir! Still, Minecraft is pretty limited mechanically. The game doesn't actually recognize any of the stuff you mention. The games' mechanics - all the technological progression and stuff - work perfectly fine in single-player. Also the number of players per server isn't quite on MMO levels... But yes, some elements of Minecraft would be great ingredients of the game I'm proposing.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > The game doesn't actually recognize any of the stuff you mention. With mods, it does.
- a1369209993 4y ago
  > The game doesn't actually recognize any of the stuff you mention. To be fair, neither does real life. Real life shops, jails, etc, are just collections of atoms with certain emergent properties resulting from how players have set them up.
gigaflop 4y ago
I haven't heard that name in a very long time. Tell me, what town did you mainly reside in? I was over in Chiapas with the crazy leftists, one of whom erected a wool statue of himself. We were largely untouched by the HCF invasion, except for when their skirmishes with the World Police got close to our borders. I offer you this classic, and hope you recognize it: https://youtu.be/BAzsolKHJfc https://youtu.be/BAzsolKHJfc
- joshlemer 4y ago
  Yep I remember that like it was yesterday! If I remember correctly, in the Civ 1.0 map I hung out a lot in Haven and in Mt Augusta
  - gigaflop 4y ago
    Mt Augusta was a little before my time. By the time I got into the server, it honestly felt like one of the most difficult places to get settled into. Crowded, property costs too high, chaotic. Dirty Ancaps everywhere. </s> I'm pretty sure it was somewhere between late 1.0 and early 2.0, but I ended up in Carson City for a bit when it was coming online. Where they made a hole in the ocean, and turned into a city. A fun place to hang out and talk shit. Do you have any 2d world maps of that era?
    - joshlemer 4y ago
      Sorry can't find any 2d world maps from the time, I'm sure there are plenty on the subreddit if you go looking :-)
the_only_law 4y ago
I remember playing on towny servers years ago and holy crap that was fun. The kingdoms and roles, and wars managed to be more immersive than games based around that concept (cough bannerlord)
infogulch 4y ago
The best Minecraft MMORPG I've seen is Monumenta ( https://playmonumenta.com/ https://playmonumenta.com/ ), which is made in the spirit of Complete The Monument (CTM) maps like Ragecraft (which is also a great experience!). A good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEK-djlOkqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEK-djlOkqE

skellera 4y ago

Can I piggyback on yours? A true FPSMMORPG. Closest thing we have to this with a good community is Destiny. I wish for fully open worlds, good storylines and everything you said. I believe that was the original idea with the project that became Overwatch but sad it didn’t pan out. I understand that level building and all is much harder when the expectation of detail is higher in FPS but hopefully that gets easier with better tools. I would think that it’s still Bungie’s ultimate goal. Hopefully Destiny can evolve into that. Whatever game does it right, has the potential to be one of the biggest games ever.

hooby 4y ago
I don't particularly care whether it's first person or some other perspective. Whether it's a shooter (or some other form of combat) isn't really relevant to my point either. Open world yes - that's totally an ingredient that goes in there. Storylines rather not. The thing is that storylines are pre-written, canned content that's just identical for every player that consumes it. In order to fit my bill, the "plot" of the game would actually have to be defined by what players are doing (and the game simulation reacting to that) - it would have to emerge dynamically. Saga of Ryzom originally tried to go a little bit along those lines, but due to the technological constraints of the day, the game world would have to evolve through updates/patches mostly.
- kaetemi 4y ago
  The issue with SoR was not really technological constraints. More budgetary and time constraints, and the people who had the creative vision left shortly after release. The commercial game is now run by a finance guy and a web developer, pretty much. Neither of which seem to be interested in pursuing the original more daring vision. The tech is definitely capable of being expanded into a real dynamic world. What you see in the game right now is effectively auto generated placeholder content that got rushed in to have a deliverable by release. Imagine if the tribes and mobs actually moved their locations dynamically, instead of being in the same spots eternally. Players could help out tribes, supply routes for trading goods between tribes would need to be maintained, mob populations would be affected by player activity, etc.
4y ago

skocznymroczny 4y ago

Some persistent world NWN servers might fit the bill. Some are heavy on roleplaying, and are more of chat servers with optional combat rather than a traditional MMO setting.

hooby 4y ago
NWN is a great example as well. It's imho quite underrated/overlooked how ground-breaking that game was, considering it's editor- and GM-tools. It's a bit too static though, to fit the bill of what I'm longing for. Needs less pre-made modules, more dynamic simulation - so that the game world actually evolves in response to what players are doing. ;)

overthemoon 4y ago

I agree. The beef I would add with those games is that they feel like theme parks. There's no real frontier. Elite Dangerous came close, it was a thrill to be the first one in a system. Genuinely don't know how you'd solve that, though. One obstacle you have to overcome is that there has to be an investment that is risked by the players. There's not much of a cost to gank someone usually, or it's simply not allowed at all except in a controlled way. One thing that forces people into social cooperation is to protect against the potential for loss. As I understand it, confrontations with other players in EVE Online are dangerous because of that investment of time and/or money. That's part of what makes roguelikes and battle royales so compelling. That said, you have to balance it against being appealing enough to more casual players--how do you encourage investment without making it a boring grind or too expensive?

hooby 4y ago
There are other ways next to protection against loss. SWG for example had all items being player-made in addition to slowly loosing durability and breaking eventually. That means, instead of finding loot you can then use indefinitely, you were dependent on economy supply chains. SWG also made you dependent on player services - like doctors, entertainers and such. I think there could easily be many casual friendly playstyles, like farming, harvesting, herding, entertaining, being mayor in a player city, etc. - in addition to more combat oriented play. Players should be able to choose one style or the other, or mix and match to their liking. And every such playstyle should both need and provide "stuff" from/to other playstyles on a regular basis.
munk-a 4y ago
Elite Dangerous is one of the most fulfilling grungy space sims I've ever played. I'm not much of one for the dog fighting side of things, but I do keep coming back to Elite to just do cargo runs or swap over to an Adder and push myself into the dark - scooping fuel off suns and try to avoid space hazards while just ogling the beautiful scenery. It is a very strange "game" though, so I understand why it's not for everyone.

sillysaurusx 4y ago

The problem is, games like that aren’t fun. It’s been tried. Imagine coming home from work and hopping online to go do your second job. A virtual economy implies work. And unless there’s something to hook people in, no one wants to do that work. Hence you end up with the quest grind and the dopamine trail. If you can find a way out, I imagine it would be very lucrative. But it’s not really a technology problem.

nicce 4y ago
I would argue that this is the exact problem of current modern games. The parent is suggesting something alternative, fun with other people. Almost every current MMORPG is oriented on getting that virtual cash or other currency up in virtual economy, to make some linear progression for pre-defined ending.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I haven’t been into MMOs in a long time, but years ago, I remember desperately trying to find a good one, but I found that not only do a lot of them have some grindy linear progression, but even worse was it was always so limited. I got sick of games that looked amazing but had basically no content.
  - Scarblac 4y ago
    Puzzle Pirates was the best game ever for a number of years. An MMO without experience points or levels. Everything powered by puzzle games. Ships operate by people playing the sailing game, the bilging game, the carpentry game, the gunning game and the navigation game. On a tiny ship a good player can do it on their own by switching rapidly, but almost always, you need a crew of people working together, up to 100+ people on very large ships. Your skill in the game decides how much you contribute to the ship's performance. To improve, you must actually improve. Ships can fight other ships (in two minigames, one before boarding and one after), a whole fleet can fight another fleet for control over an island, with 1000+ people involved, in another game. And the in game economy was really elaborate, and worked well. Again, based on people doing games in jobs. Of course, people got immensely rich and could buy things you could not. Namely, some colors for clothes and ship paint were much rarer and more expensive than other colors; black came from kraken blood and was most expensive. So you could see who was rich, but it didn't affect gameplay. Of course being able to supply a fleet of ships and thousands of cannon balls to threaten an island did, but only if you could also get hundreds of people working those ships for you.

swilliamsio 4y ago

The Mount & Blade Warband Persistent World mod servers are like this. All equipment and resources have to be mined, crafted, and used by players, and the only gameplay was player interactions - trade, banditry, war. Amazingly good fun when you're on the right servers with the right people. No idea if its still active or not.

kaetemi 4y ago

Look for the Ryzom Core Discord or IRC chat. There's a couple of us in the open source community hoping to build such a thing, based on an existing MMO codebase and assets. The key point is that all missions should be impactful on the world, and not merely reward oriented. We have the tech for an MMORPG. We've been working on simplifying the onboarding curve for new contributors first. In a few months we can start exploring game mission mechanics. :)

bcrosby95 4y ago

It's never gonna be a AAA game. The broader market just doesn't want this, and you'll need the broader market if its a AAA game. New World hit on some of these points at one point, but they backed down pretty fast. Ashes of Creation may or may not hit some of these points. But that game is... overly ambitious, to say the least. They're trying to go full tilt on everything and I'm skeptical as to whether it's gonna work out well in the end.

omgketchup 4y ago

God I miss the glory days of Ultima Online.

newobj 4y ago

Ever heard of A Tale In The Desert? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_in_the_Desert https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_in_the_Desert

yvdriess 4y ago
Yes! It's amazing that it is still going.
hombre_fatal 4y ago
Oh man, I loved this game almost 20 years ago. My friend and I started building on the side of a pond far away from everyone. We would get home from school and tie our house phone to our heads with our dad's tube socks so we could stay in constant communication while we collected resources and build up our enterprise.

zokier 4y ago

In terms of mmorpgs, I'd love to see a game with actual human GMs behind the scenes enabling players to have far more latitude in their actions. I'm envisioning something like a cross of EVE and tabletop rpgs.

munk-a 4y ago
You should check out MUDs - MUDs (being entirely text based) are easy for any old person to modify and create within... no texture or graphics work - just writing. As a result a lot of MUDs have extremely dynamic worlds that have large ongoing plots being managed by the GMs.
tagami 4y ago
The old Ultima Online had GMs pop in and create quests and random events. Non-scalable, but - oh - so much fun
- lrem 4y ago
  "Non-scalable" is a rather medium excuse though. There's quite a few ways around this: 1. Raise prices enough to employ enough humans. I imagine there's quite a few people out there who'd be happy to spend a pint's price on a quality gaming experience. 2. Give the GM better tools. Higher level half-scripted events + better sentiment monitoring. I imagine a single competent GM can run in parallel a bunch of events keeping quite a few players engaged. 3. Recruit experienced players to do this job for you. I imagine there's quite a few people who'd do this job for in-game goods, as long as an hour of GM-ing gives a couple hours worth of grind of goods.
snikeris 4y ago
Gemstone IV does this.
petewailes 4y ago
Currently building this. We're launching in August.
- 4y ago

worker767424 4y ago

> a genre of checking off boxes and making numbers go up, along a linear way as laid out by the developers for you Feels like a FAANG job

michaelbrave 4y ago

I've heard of some success with this where people using mods on minecraft to implement economies on private servers. But yes, sandbox MMO's were a different beast than the themepark MMO's we have today, I had high hopes for Everquest Next when it was announced (like ten years ago now) but it ended up vaporware I guess, and that was the last I've heard of anyone actually trying. I guess metaverse might count but I've mostly ignored anything that facebook tries to do.

mikkergp 4y ago

Expanding on your idea, I thought it would be interesting to have an MMORPG with multiple completely different clients. The easiest example might be in a future/sci-fi game, you have a normal game client for people moving around the game, and a Stock market client for people who want to play the stock market in the game. You could have a business simulation client as well maybe for shop keepers. Maybe a news website to try and bridge the gap between them all, but you could play one game (the stock market game) while never logging into the First Person "MMO" client but you're completely integrated. If you could think of a number of these different clients, I think it would be interesting.

happimess 4y ago
I love this idea for so many games, but I'll try to stay on topic. From elsewhere in thread, heavily snipped: games like that aren’t fun. It’s been tried. [...] hopping online to go do your second job [...] implies work [...] no one wants to do that work I wouldn't want to do data entry in an FPS game, no, but people love "bakery simulator" type resource management games. It would be cool to link my grocery-line-time-waster score into my overworld bank account, enabling me to shop around for gear in stores set up (but not manually run) by other players, to use in the FPS portion of the game where I steal morsels from the full-sized humans (or am I getting my threads confused?).
wincy 4y ago
EVE tried this with Eve Online + Dust 514 which was a PS3 exclusive. There were cool concepts like having your space ships show up to air strike the planet as they were fighting on the surface. It was interesting but ultimately Dust felt extremely low stakes in the world of EVE. I can’t really speak to its other problems I only tried it once or twice.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Yeah, I imagine a challenge would be making a second really fun game in a different genre from the first. The different 'games' would probably have to be relatively lightweight and lean into the fact that it's the interaction that is the fun part. Having a space MMO developer somehow land a super popular AAA FPS would be near impossible. I like how the battlefield games let you fly airplanes, but then it's not really a full blow flight simulator.

jayd16 4y ago

Most popular MMOs do have healthy economies and virtual cultures. You do need to participate though. If party play is enforced then party members certainly do affect game mechanics. Maybe you want a pvp focused MMO? Maybe something like PlanetSide with more of an economy? Either that or maybe you want some big story points influenced by players? Honestly I think you'd probably be disappointed unless you are personally part of the group that made the influential change. That takes a lot of investment as the mechanic would either be pvp or feel like its on rails. Maybe you just want an RP wow server and a guild that is into grinding for Glam/RP loot according to their own stories? I don't see how it's a technical problem at all. It sounds like your major issues are with story telling. Can you explain what technology you think is missing?

1980phipsi 4y ago

What about an MMORPG with Chronotrigger-like features where two or three players together can do a special move.

wardedVibe 4y ago

So the largest public server (white tiger) for the game eco https://play.eco/ https://play.eco/ might scratch that itch.

rococode 4y ago

I have high hopes for the upcoming MMORPG from Riot Games (maker of League of Legends/Valorant/Legends of Runeterra/Wild Rift). So far all of their new games have been very solid entrants in their respective genres. They have consistently had strong storytelling and art/design throughout their games, and they've mentioned there will be a focus on co-op content in the RPG. It's probably still several years away, though. That said, I think part of the problem is that we've all gotten older, and no one has time to spend 5+ hours a day in a game world anymore. The younger generation may be able to experience it, but for those of us who have memories of old MMOs, it's unlikely we'll ever truly relive those nostalgia-filled moments.

vorpalhex 4y ago

These aren't quite true MMOs but will scale up to 40+ people online at once, with totally emergent social structures: + Rust + Ark + Conan Exiles

staindk 4y ago
I think the recently-released V Rising could be added to that list as well. Seems a great game.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Can confirm. Is excellent.

Freeboots 4y ago

I have a MUD open right now in another window. I still play it because despite the lack of graphics, the freedoms of player interaction are interesting and far beyond whats available in modern open world games. Attack a same side player? Sure! You might get warranted by the local militia (which may or may not have real players in it), but you can do it. Pickpocket players? Sure. Change sides mid fight? Yep. Be a spy or mole for the enemy? Chase people down in 'safe zones'? Completely ignore PvP? All up to you. Another thing i really like is looting. If you die, anyone can grab gear from your corpse. If the enemy get it, you're gear is gone. Theres no perma death in this particular Mud, but losing gear adds stakes to PvP. It also means gear is a real in game commodity, but also people dont get too precious about it. Die in the fight? Reequip asap and get back out there.

munk-a 4y ago
MUDs are a class of game that is terribly underrated. I've played on a few different one (mostly toward the RP focused end of things) but I think the whole family of games shows just how effective imagination can be when coupled solely with text descriptions. I have extremely strong memories from Shadows of Isildur[1] and met my spouse there! 1. http://www.middle-earth.us/ http://www.middle-earth.us/
agweber 4y ago
All of your points also exist in Renaissance era Ultima Online. There are a number of custom shards with playerbases that want this exact experience.
- Freeboots 4y ago
  Yup! Ultima is another great game from when they were still 'figuring out' open world games, before they became stale.

lubesGordi 4y ago

I think the constraint here is that you need people to create novel objects with novel functionality in the virtual world and then sell them to have an economy. That might be tricky but if you could solve it well then, your imagination is the limit.

munk-a 4y ago
If people love the world they'll be happy to make things without financial recompense. Lots of folks used to run RP guilds in WoW and other games with entire worlds constructed out of whole cloth - if you build a flexible system and supply the players then DMs will emerge and create gameplay within the world - just like D&D DMs get into it for the fun alone.

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discardedrefuse 4y ago

Lots of games have dedicated "role-play" servers. When I read your comment i instantly thought of this: https://www.polygon.com/22512951/gta-online-new-day-role-play-server-state-election-san-andreas-los-santos https://www.polygon.com/22512951/gta-online-new-day-role-pla... Conan Exiles is another game that has RP servers of a different variety.

mustacheemperor 4y ago

You might enjoy Eco. It's not quite an MMO, but it is a multiplayer game that can have large server populations where everyone must work together to advance through a collective "tech tree". It starts very similarly to a Minecraft playthrough, but has a much deeper cooperative progression of advancing different trades and resource gathering methods until the server can construct a laser cannon to destroy the meteor en route to impact the planet. There are also pollution and environmental mechanics, and diplomacy and collective governance. So you may have a player who produces lots of ore, but poisons the oceans to do so, and other players can collectively lobby to restrict that through the government. But at the same time, everyone must rely on the production of ore to further advance the tech tree. It can be a lot of fun with the right group of people. There's also a lot of flexibility for adjusting the game's parameters, so you can make it work with 2 people or 20 so that everyone needs to work together but the tasks don't seem insurmountable. It's one of the most novel and interesting multiplayer game concepts I've played in recent memory.

Forgeties79 4y ago

I’m not sure how WoW isn’t/wasn’t just ticking off boxes? That’s all MMORPG’s ever basically. “Go here, kill boars, bring me 5 of their tusks. By the way it’s a 25% drop rate so really you’re killing ~20. Oh and they’re often by themselves across a large area. Oh and other players need the same amount too so you’re competing for the kills. Oh and there are baby boars harassing you that don’t count. Oh and there’s no quest marker until you’re mini map can see it so it’s going to take you 10min of wandering around a featureless field before you know you’re in their spawn area. As obnoxious as I’m being, the thrust of basically any MMORPG is grinding hours of boring tasks to get minutes of awesome time with the fruits of your labor. That’s how they make you stick around - roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. You remove the grind (d3 auction house) and you remove your players.

astrange 4y ago
FFXIV doesn’t really have mandatory grind. They instead make the main story actually good (better than most other FF games) and so people will buy the expansion packs even if they don’t stick around every other month.
- deleted 4y ago
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- Forgeties79 4y ago
  I agree but there’s a reason I didn’t say “literally every MMORPG does this.” FFXIV definitely stands out as a notable exception. SE is also big enough that they don’t need FFXIV to generate insane revenue to justify its existence, and good on them for making good use of that. It’s a profitable title that has also built them a lot of good will as a company, good will that’s been sorely needed lately. My point is, most MMORPGs depend on giving you relatively simple tasks but finding ways to make them take three hours.

EarthLaunch 4y ago

I have been trying to make one like this for a decade, kind of a next-gen UO. Right now it's big ideas and the beginnings of a world. I'm not promoting it but feel free to take a look! I have a discord for discussing these games as well, though it's not active.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

This is basically what people mean by The Metaverse. Digital cash + social interaction + player created environment and content. Getting all three of those right will be a big winner since it will literally mean the creation of a second world that people can inhabit. I don't think it's possible without any of those three elements.

softcactus 4y ago

Check out Foxhole. There's one server with thousands of people fighting on one map in a massive war. All weapons, ammunition, structures, etc are built by players from mined resources. The "High Command" Discords for each faction have their own internal tools used for gathering intel with computer vision and stuff. There's also a live map of the war: https://foxholestats.com/ https://foxholestats.com/

brokencode 4y ago

I think it’d be cool if all the players in a server are part of a country in a constantly changing state of warfare and alliance with other countries in a huge world. Where your goal is not to level up, but to participate in actions that expand your homeland or fend off invaders or expand your economy. The larger and wealthier your country becomes, the more you become a threat to other powerful nations who will want to stamp you out. Or maybe there would be revolutions, alien invaders, etc. if you become too powerful. Alternatively, if the players of the realm fail to defend their lands or make peace with their enemies, they might be conquered and forced to live under another empire, fighting their wars and paying high taxes, until one day they can scheme to win their independence again. Of course, this does essentially mean your world can become irreparably messed up, but that’s life. Maybe people would give up on a server and move on to a new world with new ambitions about how they can do better next time.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> Old games (pre-WoW) like UO and SWG had some of that magic as well - but were marred by limitations of the technology of the day. Tibia too. It used to be an extremely social game. Everything was hard so people had to play together. It's been modernized and made much easier, nowadays it feels like the magic is gone. The changes began with restrictions on player killing and spiralled from there.

gfaregan 4y ago

I can see a couple of obstacles: Complex simulation based mechanics are much harder to implement than more basic fighting mechanics. Puzzles require more work and hand crafting than creating new monsters to kill. The whole project is probably more work, harder to scale, and has an unproven audience.

muzani 4y ago

"Id like to see a game, where the sum of players (and their interactions) are greater than just the sum of it's parts. A game with a virtual economy, a virtual society, etc. - that advance and evolve in a player-driven fashion. A simulated game world that dynamically adapts." This describe Soulforged perfectly: https://play.soulforged.net/ https://play.soulforged.net/ It's funny but if you drop by the Discord, we've been having lengthy conversations yesterday on why this might not be fun. The short of it is that it hurts solo players and individualism. Communes are extremely powerful and necessary for progress. There are also certain professions that are popular (like mining) but gated because of the rarity of mining picks. So a lot of people give up on their mining dreams for the greater good. The mining problem was patched just this morning, but solo gameplay is still a problem - you need to be part of some group to get anywhere. The other major problem with a sandbox is many have no idea where to continue. They chop wood poles and then chop higher level wood and making housing from that. And then don't really have much to aspire for other than hoarding wealth. So the dev is adding quest-like features: one classic MMO quest system and a player based system, where people can pay for say, ore, or a rare material found from certain beasts. But the world is based a lot on the players, from settlements to the name of materials. If you guys plan on joining, civilization is past the river. Head south outside the tutorial cave, then keep moving NE past the bridge. The roads are also player built but nobody got around to making roads for the newbies.

muzani 4y ago
On a bit of a tangent, there was a prequel. A plague hit - it was very annoying but lethality was low. Half the player base decided to quarantine. There was a route west, which involved a dangerous swamp and a climb up a mountain that most newbies couldn't make if they didn't have the right buffs. New citizens would be escorted to the mountain, quarantined for 4 days, then buffed so they could cross it. The other group was the "gains" group. They figured out that sparring increased stats rapidly and they could buff stats to the point where the disease was no longer a problem. So then there was a PvE war with the orcs, which hit an uneasy peace, where the player base decided to just give tribute of weapons and armor to them. A third faction spawned, the orc sympathisers, who snuck more steel weapons to the copper age orcs. A smith player unlocked the orc race this way and black market emerged trading iron to the orcs. The gains faction were uneasy with this and broke the peace treaty. The rest of the game, unhappy with breaking a treaty, moved west. The gains faction conquered the orcs. The orc god was impressed and there was a party involving player-crafted beer, and a brawl with a god that increased someone's dodge skills to superhuman levels. The orcs were assimilated and they created a warrior-murderhobo faction in the north. They took on small territory, near a rich mine and some rare leathers used in armour. By the end of the game, everyone up north including chicken farmers had the highest tier swords. The isolationist faction had a larger block of land and established trading relations with the dwarves. They got access to many of the remaining dungeons and artifact zones. Sadly the game died shortly after, because of tech debt, server costs, and a burnt out player base. After a year, it was rebuilt into what became Soulforged today.

KVFinn 4y ago

This is happening right now, but in small MMOs, usually with 128 or 256 maximum players online. Most common in heavily modded Minecraft servers, but also in many other games. There are also some roleplaying focused servers in games like GTA5 or Rust, which generally reset much more quickly. Also see this game, ECO: https://store.steampowered.com/app/382310/Eco/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/382310/Eco/ listen to first 10 minutes of this podcast: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/brad-will-made-a-tech-pod/79-a-subsidiary-of-starko-industries/ https://podtail.com/en/podcast/brad-will-made-a-tech-pod/79-...

ehnto 4y ago

I would be in your views on it's economy and settlments gameplay in SWG. In some ways, Star Citizen may shape out to be a good replacement for SWG, if settlements, economy and manufacturing come out well there would be scenarios that aren't possible without an organisation or cooperation and real benefits to being part of a settlement. Think manufacturing pipelines and trading routes that can't be handled by one person. There are also ships you couldn't possibly fly and afford on your own, capital ships and the like. The caveat to a game like that, is it lives and dies by it's player count. You really want to be on the bandwagon when it kicks off.

dwd 4y ago

Some of the browser based games like Travian, Inselkampf and OGame had similar meta games like Eve Online where the diplomacy, alliance management and game tool building took up far more time than the actual game. They were for all intents social constructs with the game as the centre point. I'm looking to build a new version with different scenarios but it is the social aspect that makes them so compelling.

Spartan22 4y ago

I'm currently building a game like this and it's pretty close to finish. The game is a Space Survival MMORPG that takes place far into the future, where human civilization is stranded in an O'Neill Cylinder in space. No one in the cylinder knows anymore how they got there and why they are there in the first place since so much time has passed. Technology has also been lost due to the very long time periods, so life and survival is tough in the cylinder. However, the longer someone survives, the stronger and the more rare their character becomes. We expect only a few percent of players to survive for longer than a couple of weeks and only 1% for longer than a month. However, those that have survived for longer than a month are very strong characters that can usually lead and provide protection to a village of 50 to several hundred people. The biggest danger to the player are other players, since the entire game is PvP. This means, you need to quickly band up with others to protect against other players. There are no guns in the game, since there is no technology in the cylinder, so it takes several minutes of beating someone up to to actually get their health to zero. There is also voice chat, so it's quite brutal. Here is our teaser trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg4GHUIXB8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg4GHUIXB8U and here is some pre-alpha gameplay footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFHzg0R8sUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFHzg0R8sUo. We'll likely be able to go into early access in June on Steam, it would be great to get your feedback on it!

dukes82 4y ago
Gives me rendevous with rama vibes!
- Spartan22 4y ago
  That's the one! :)

tsuujin 4y ago

For me, this is a role that MUDs used to fill. Text-based online games with player driven governments, economies, and theologies. You, as a person, could work your way up a ladder to be a renown combatant, or diplomat, or merchant; but, none of that had any value if not for the other people playing the game. You got dropped off in a virtual world and truly had agency to play a role. Ultimately as I got older they became too much of a time sink and I just can’t play them anymore, but back in my high school days they were an absolute blast.