Okay I have been wrestling with an idea in recent days. At the heart of it is the idea of a breeding game/creation game. The general gist of the idea is that you are able to either:

1. Breed existing pairs of same creatures to continue the same breed.
   
2. Create new breeds through magic and pieces of other animals eg: the creation of a hypogriff requires pieces of an eagle and a horse.
   

Whilst I can see this to a degree being done as a social game I must admit this falls more into the vein of my thinking about different crafting ideas that could be implemented into MMO’s (Holy Crap I said the MMO word!). The breeding profession being used as a source for mount and pet creation in-game, as well acting in its own way as a mini-game within a larger game.

Using the above example as a guide I would be interested in other “crafting” professions can people think of that could work in a similar vein. Something out of the ordinary or perhaps even so ordinary that people haven’t thought of it. Also am open to suggestions on how you would think the above example might work in practical terms i.e. timewise limitations etc. but truthfully am more interested in the idea of unique professions, and please expand on your ideas.

Edit: I forgot to mention -- I am interested in the idea of how these professions suggested would be utilisable as effective and ongoing timesinks (without the drudgery that seems prevalent in a lot of the existing MMO's) i.e. a mini-game within a game but as a profession.

Edit: An earlier thread on breeding game within an MMO http://www.gamedev.n...mo-marketplace/


An overview of discussion so far:

Jbadams
A defining of points relating to professions within the context of a game world

Stormynature:
A breeder profession involving the breeding and creation of new/old species developing ingame mounts and companion pets.

Jeffereytitan
A spell system combining a unique affinity for each spellcaster in combination with environmental factors and spell components in which to cast.

Kyan
A robotics/mechanoid engineer that creates multi-functional mechanoids that can be broken down and rebuilt to service multiple different functions dependant on design used.

Zethariel
A teaching profession which could be used to impart skills from other professions over to other players. Contributions: AltarofScience
Locksmith/puzzle masters that solve puzzles in-game to unlock lockboxes/doors etc as well as a design aspect to create locking systems
Piloting/taxi profession in an environment of inherent risk associated.

Altarofscience
A number of different suggestions not truly explored but included:
Alchemy
Operating a sailing/trade ship (or similar type vehicle)

ImmoralAtheist and Hughinn
A crafting system for weaponry and armour utilising a “rather unique” perspective adapted from the "World of Goo".

Mratthew
A bard profession that is probably truer to the principle of a bard than any implementation I have seen in a game.

How about a spellcrafter or magical artefact maker? You could have a spell system which essentially has a technical spell language with it's own grammar. Brave but foolish individuals could just try out new spells and see what happens. Or more serious casters could figure out the rules for themselves and make new spells on demand. Based on knowledge of the properties of spells, they could find materials for and craft artefacts that can hold an instance of a spell well, e.g. a protective amulet against fire spells.

You could have a spell system which essentially has a technical spell language with it's own grammar. Brave but foolish individuals could just try out new spells and see what happens. Or more serious casters could figure out the rules for themselves and make new spells on demand.

I like this idea but how would you combat such a system being put on the web once solved and thus reducing the timesink/mini-game aspect? Not so much about the stopping of webposts but rather varying in-game mechanics that make such actions negligible. Off the top of my head I see something along the lines of each person's affinity with magic being a unique relationship and thus applying a different subset of rules for learning magic. For example a strong fire affinity might mean adding more water elements in a water-based spell to offset the players extra fire affinity (dumbed down version). Do you have an alternative?

Offtopic:
Reading your other topics I would say making breeding minigame within MMO won't make sense in your case. You obviously like breeding pets a lot, why not making a full blown game about breeding pets only then? You don't need this whole RPG thing added to your beloved breeding It's not like you can't do it or that it would be unpopular, the pet games genre is relatively well known and you will surely find players for it.

Actually I don't really have any strong opinions one way or the other with regard breeding games. If my other posts gave that impression I apologise. I tend to ask questions of other posters at times to smooth out or enlighten me as to logical inconsistencies or story/game flows. The context of this post was not so much about the breeding game idea though I welcome feedback - It was more about defining professions within an MMO environment that had the capacity to act as long-term time sinks with a slant towards mini-games being the theme rather than for example: the classical armour crafter who grinds his/her skill up but then might spend half an MMO expansion never truly utilising it and thus not a very effective long-term time sink.


edits: grammatical

Ah, I wrote that before the "ongoing timesinks" edit. Hmm, not sure. Well, you could turn it into a combo crafting/exploration thing, e.g. you can hunt for ancient spells that use new words/grammar that you haven't encountered before, then use them in your own spells. Find new materials for crafting artefacts out of. Maybe even be somewhat of an architect, e.g. create a one-off spell to protect a castle which is powered by nearby magma. I think it would be good to have affinities for spells, e.g. either affected by the environment or by the caster.

I think it would be good to have affinities for spells, e.g. either affected by the environment or by the caster.

Actually a combination of environmental factors as well a unique spell caster affinity with the aforementioned language and spell components would probably serve to create a deep enough set of variables that would work well as an ongoing time-sink. Thank you

Lol I had already created a thread for Lasting PvE features.
It had lots of replies too and still not old.