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So there will be no specific discussions on story other than how it will related to the reasons (if any) that I've decided to include certain types of systems in the game. While these systems won't be dependent on those ideas, they will certainly be influenced by them.
To get things started, it's an Action RPG game system similar in vain to almost any other MUD (although some eschew the traditions) and also similar to common core MMO mechanics and perhaps some non-MMO style RPG games that exist.
Some systems were inspired by games, some ideas I've had for many, many years (longer than some games that have recently implemented similar systems) and some ideas are ripped directly from current/past games. Just a heads up I'm not claiming I'm responsible for all this good stuff.
So let's get it started!
No levels.
I guess the starting question is why do you want to develop this game, and what you hope to get out of it.
Hmm, didn't expect an AmA 😛
Because I want to build a game of the likes I've wished that I could have played.
And the only thing I want out of it is to see people progress and enjoy the game.
I suppose more backstory is in order so here goes:
I want actions to be meaningful. All actions. Single player RPG games (especially as we get into the more modern ones) are getting much better at making choices meaningful, but usually in very specific linear ways. MMOs are getting there (at least WoW in this regard I'm unfamiliar with any other approach to phasing but by no means claiming is the only one that does this, and I'm not talking about games like Minecraft that are just sandboxes) where you can represent player actions through quests and interactions to the world in ways that feel meaningful.
To accomplish that I want to build a more dynamic system that takes into account a lot of different factors. For example, an idea I started looking recently is having a forest with "wood nodes" where a wood worker or someone who just wants to gather and sell wood (or maybe firewood) can come gather wood.
In the traditional sense, the node would despawn after interaction and respawn at some later time to be used again.
An alternative is to combine world-based phasing for each "room" (if you don't know what that means, ask) is tied to a resource count. So a room representing the entrance to a forest is tied to 100,000 resources of "wood" (simplifying here). Once the population has depleted those 100,000 resources (and even, perhaps, throughout it's depletion) the room description is permanently changed from "the entrance to a forest" to "a continuation of the plains with a forest just ahead."
This makes resource gathering less mindless and also offers a means to prevent outrageous economic growth associated with "generating" new resources all the time.
It also allows players to permenently change the face of the game world as they play.
Following along those same lines, "major bosses" are one time experiences (to a degree). Once a major boss is cleared, that's written history. Player names/guilds are recorded, special one time items (artifacts) are dropped, and content moves on.
I say "up to an extent" for two reasons, I've toyed with either having the content be "done" after a time period after the first clear, or offer non-game first clear options.
In other words, if a boss drops Super Awesome Sword as an artifact on first kill, then afterwards it would drop Super Awesome Sword as a rare (or some other lower-than-artifact rarity) with lesser stats on it.
I don't want to prevent new players from seeing old content. I just don't want old content to remain super relevant because the story is intended to grow with the players. And in order to do that, I need to encourage players to remain in the "now" and not in the "past."
Through phasing options/instancing/or special "maps" I could preserve old experiences for those wishing to continue them, but I'm pretty hard set on one-time chances at Artifact quality items. (Note, not random drop, it's not "maybe he drops an artifact on first kill," all "major bosses" will have one or more associated artifacts that are unique items and guaranteed drops.
Moving on from there, another thing I want to try and do to keep content moving is having a skill-only system unrelated to levels so that the gap between "new" characters and "powerful" characters is smaller. Not gone, but smaller.
The intent is that newbie you can fight in that epic boss battle, get the Super Awesome Artifact sword and use it immedieately, even though you just created your character 10 minutes ago (I realize players would probably never let such an event happen, but bear with me).
To achieve this, you'd just be less effective overall with it, but get more effective as you grow your skills with the weapon type (or armor type, or spell effect type, and so forth).
All of these things I want to use to give the players a fantasy world that feels like they actually have the ability to shape it's future -- because they do.
I hope that serves as a better answer to your question Brendan.
So I guess I'll get some feedback on that before I start dumping a bunch of other things. Which gives me time to organize my thoughts better on them.
Be as critical as you want. Love it or hate it, I don't care. I want any and all feedback.
I don't need you all to tell me how awesome I am at coming up with ideas unless that is truely how you feel.
I'm sure most hatred will center on the one-time content stuff.
And I want to know why, or why not.
And also, @here Thanks to everyone who has joined to participate now and in the future!
I honestly don't see how your depletion strategy would prevent economic growth. Would there just be no more trees anywhere?
Once all forests were entirely wiped out.
Now bear in mind that's an example of an idea I just started thinking about.
It's not finalized, nor fully planned.
Nor have I decided that's the approach I really want to take.
But it's the kind of change I wan to empower players to have, so I felt it worth bringing up in that explanation.
Resource management is always a difficult concept to strategize for a game developer, especially since at the start you don't necessarily know those resources will be interacted with.
And coupled with a forest-less world new players and old players a like would no longer need kind of "woodworking" skill.
Unless of course current crafted objects could be repurposed for a small resource loss.
So, gather "10 wood" to make a chair.
Or trees were a "renewable" resource
Later take the chair to get "8 wood" to make a stool.
Then take the stool to get "6 wood" to make a box.
I very briefly thought about that. Some kind of plant/regrowth system for natural resources (in the example now, trees).
Obviously farming for flowers and other plants.
Then have spell effects that can augment growth time.
So a tree would regrow from a seed into a full resource hog in 1 year (real time).
Or spells could be used to supplement growth and get it down.
To a more short-term accessible goal.
Although the issue with associating this to objects in a game world is do I really need to have a room in a forest with "10 trees are standing here"
or "You see 8 large trees, 2 small trees here."
And just have the trees be depeleted?
Or just cut magic out all-together and have trees just be a resource that has to be managed to keep producing
I couldn't really do the "plant a resource" type system if the resource count were blindly attached to a room.
You could set a maximum to a room
I want magic to play a big role. That's an entire discussion unto itself that I'll save once I've gathered more thoughts.
Just know that if you have a spell that reduces the time a tree grows, it means you've spent significant time playing and perfecting. So it would effectively be a "just reward"
Sure, magic is important. But you want to know how things work before magic is introduced.
Otherwise it's not a dynamic system
No, I would never introduce a system of this nature to players with immediately accessible spells.
Nobody would start of with, or learn quickly the "regrow tree" spell.
So initially resource management is a group effort, that takes time and thought.
I'm not talking about whether or not spells exist, just that how the game elements interact as an idea needs to exist without magic
At some point, someone will learn it but by then it would be well deserved and those that wish to manage trees as renewable resources would pay for services from these players.
Or these players would offer their services for free.
I don't really think I agree with that. From a design perspective. If I want to have magic, at some point, aid in resource management. Then I need to have that taken into account when designing resource management.
It doesn't have to be "in the game" so to speak in that it's accessible.
But the option should be explored and the effects need to be thought of ahead of time, at least.
Just as an example, if I build all tree-related resourcing around a 1 year full cycle regrowth from seed to tree, then later I add a spell that allows you to regrow from seed to tree in 3 months. That breaks the entire system I've built around it taking 1 year.
If I instead plan on having it become more accessible through magic, that can be taken into account ahead of time.
And (using the numbers given) plan around a 6-9 month cycle for seed-to-tree growth.
Sure it'll suck before magic because you'll (and this is all basic discussion) need more resources to do the same thing, but it'll balance out once the magic is discovered/introduced.
Definitely valid points. And I'm starting to be more attracted to the concept of having the "nodes" as individual resources that can be managed. Instead of a "number per room"
I can just add more trees to rooms deeper in the forest.
Resource lines in "looks" can be condensed into one.
So you wont see 10 lines of "a large tree is here"
You'll just see "ten large trees are here"
But then the new concern becomes about resources with no short-term (in the "up to a year or two") regrowth cycle, like metals.
Those would require a magic system of regrowth if they were to be considered in the "renewable" resource group.
Although I don't think they should be renewable.
I'm not even sure I'd go with an "old school" alchemy approach with spells like, "transmute copper to gold"
That could deplete the games copper resources without ever having them be leveraged.
I can already picture a whole class of players that spend their in game time managing resources for the world-at-large.
Let me add-on a small bit on magic. Magic is not like in the games of the genre. More like a system similar in effect as in pen and paper games where casting comes down to a well planned strategy rather than a "I can do whatever I want and recover immediately" attitude.
So, having not planned anything specifically I'm not talking about having a "per day" cast system, but a long-form mana restoration system. So you can grow your mana pool and effectively increase your "per day" usage but mana restores (in real time) slowly, with few things that speed it up, like lets say 1 point/minute to maybe 1 point/45 seconds (as a pure example). And cast times for larger spells aren't in the range of sub-minute casts. So expanding on that, a "large" mana pool could feature 200 mana, and a spell to regrow a tree would cost 100 mana, take 15 minutes to cast.
It's not something people are going to walk around throw down every where.
And I did mention that it wouldn't be instant, it would be a reduction in total cycle life so from a year to 6 months or to 3 months or varying degrees based on skill.
The more powerful, the more expensive.
Nothing has been planned on spell cost/mana resourcing yet. But what I used as an example is true-to-intent on what I want to achieve with magic. Spells are maningful, and must be planned. Strategic use. Small spells could cost little to no mana to use, so that you can viably play as a mage without the necessity to pick up weapons if one so chose, but I want large hitting spells to require thought and planning.
So spell resourcing is more for significant or multi-effect spells.
A "fireball" up to a certain level of power might be free to cast, and be roughly equivalent to a skilled swordsman in damage. But a meteor would be costly to cast in both resources and time and have the effects to make it worth it.
I want magic to be true in nature. Magic is usually artificially weakened in games so that balance can be made, but I'm not looking to balance a spell, or spell effect with any one thing. If a spell that did 1,000 damage with a 3 minute cast could be cast every 3 minutes until the player quit playing, then some form of balance between damage should be balanced.
But if the 3-minute cast costs 50 mana and a mana pool is 125, and this is countered with other forms of damaging abilities then max it's done twice. If 1 point is regenerated per minute it would take almost an hour to recast the spell. So you're really needing to balance the 1,000 damage the meteor might do with how much melee damage might end up doing over the course of 25-ish minutes.
PvP is not my main priority or a priority necessarily at all although it will have to be present in some form.
But small spells will suffice there with more utility.
A 3-minute long cast in PvP would be a death sentence anyways.
I'm running into a tangent here.
We can discuss magic in more detail later.