Interesting question...

It might help to look at things in a more general way rather than trying to pull specific examples out of nowhere -- formulate a set of "guidelines" if you will, for what would constitute an interesting and playable profession. Off the top of my head, a couple of initial guidelines might be:

• A profession must be useful. It needs to produce something, whether that product be a tangible in-game item (swords, armour, creatures) or the addition of new abilities (like the spell-crafting example above). If the profession doesn't produce something that players consider to be valuable then the overwhelming majority will have no interest in trying it out, and if they do decide to give it a go will unlikely be motivated to continue for very long.
  
• A profession should present players with some sort of meaningful choice. That is to say, it needs to be interesting. In the spell-crafting example above which elements to use and how you combine them would be your meaningful choices, or in your breeding example it would be which creatures to try to combine. Even a simple mining profession features the choice of where to dig. Preferably there should be more than one desirable outcome, to encourage experimentation with different choices and combinations.
  
• An interesting profession should ideally offer different gameplay. If different professions just involve doing the same actions with different graphics, then we won't engage different skills in the players, and being good at one profession will make the player good with others. We want to provide a different experience, not just the same experience in a different skin.
  

What do you think? Are those good guidelines for an interesting profession? What else makes for a good profession?


I must admit when writing the post this morning I had considered placing down some general guidelines inline with what you placed down and then ran out of time micromanaging real life. Thank you for that. One other aspect I had also considered within these generalities was the idea that a player could if he/she wanted utilise the mini-game profession in such a way as that was what they played the MMO for primarily - Something akin to the way some players might simply play the Auction House all day in WoW. So rather than necessarily getting to deep into the theory of the model was looking to see if people had had similar thoughts or were able to bring new perspectives of what occupations/professions might be workable.

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

For anyone interested, I believe he means the topic "[MMO] Meaningful, fun and lasting PvE system(s)?", in which there does indeed appear to be some relevant discussion.

I had read your thread glhf and had indeed taken a couple of things from it into my thinking. I would have liked your post a lot more if you had managed to actually post something more helpful along the lines of what jbadams then subsequently did with your post, by providing a link and relating information from it into a form relevant to the discussion. However despite there being some similarities your thread is a broad canvassing panorama whereas in this thread I am attempting to focus on specific area of interest i.e.
:

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

------------------------------------------------------

One idea mentioned in the other topic is the idea of including some player created content; if you can come up with a sensible way of allowing players to create additional content for the game, then you might be able to keep things interesting and stay a step ahead of online guides by making use of a steady flow of new content. If we consider the spell-casting idea above, players could be given a way of creating new components, so that there are constantly new combinations becoming possible.

Changing environmental influences could also be an excellent way of keeping such as system fresh and interesting, as could limiting and then replenishing the availability of certain components over time.

I must admit I had actually gone a different way in my thinking from you here and had externalised this into more of an idea of utilising cash shops maintained by game owners but revenue streaming into the indie's hands. But as am still messing with some ideas around transactions etc hadn't yet reached a point of wanting to post. I do like the ebb and flow of components, I think seasonal aspects as well if factoring weather into a game you could create limited availbility of supplies as well using "dried" versions possessing different potencies compared to "fresher" supplies.


Keeping in mind the general guidelines as posted by JBadams I am still very much interested in other profession possibilites or even working "classic/traditional" professions in such a way as to bring them inline with the theme of this thread.

First, compositional gameplay is something that I have a rather rabid obsession with, so I can't help but approve of the initial example. There are a number of pitfalls, however, which I shan't go into but which JBadams' list goes a good distance toward preventing.

Secondly, I suppose (because I'm not certain if the idea is any good) I'll share my "pet" profession for a project I'm working on. It's a space-based RPG so I apologize if you wanted medieval only ideas. Anyway, the basis is [surprise!] building robots and is, unsurprisingly, called Robotics. I initally drew up plans for a complex scheme involving custom robots, user-created paths, and an obscenely unfortunate UI for directing robot behavior and then realized that only people with Ph.D.s in inanity could possibly find that interesting, so I scaled it back a bit and looked at what I really wanted. To use JBadam's list, I ended up with:

• A profession must be useful.
  
  
  
  • Robots are useful as they are essentially free party members that can perform specific, albeit limited, functions. The key point of robots that I really wanted to emphasize is that they are expendable, thus the need to keep producing them. Being able to produce robots "in the wild" - as well as salvage various new parts for them - is a potentially excellent skill to have in a dubious situation.
    
    
    
    • In accordance with this, most robots take the form of "glass cannons" - they don't have a lot of hp. This prevents them from becoming a nuisance and removes the temptation to let robots play the game for the player.
      
    • It bears worth noting that my game is based around functionality differences. Thus, there's no direct "upgrades" for various attachments: it is concievable that a robot with a shotgun is more useful than one with a machine gun in certain circumstances.
      

A profession should present players with some form of meaningful choice.

• A core part of the "Robotics" profession is outfitting various robots with different tools. The term "robot" is a bit misleading: as described below, only vehicular machines are capable of movement, all the others are required to be mounted on a vehicle in order to change position. To expand upon that slightly, robots that aren't attached have two basic functions:
  
  
  
  • Vehicular robots without a top attachment are allowed to carry a single item from the player's inventory to some destination or perform vehicle-specific actions (like bulldozing, etc.).
    
  • All other robots are allowed to be set up as stationary platforms, either on the ground or on a wall.
    

[indent=2]Some carry weapons and are merciless fighters, some understand only the concept of plowing through walls, while others use sensors to find hidden enemies. Ideally, robots would be able to use most of the items that players can obtain, in addition to having access to various unique forms of sensing and movement.

• An interesting profession should ideally offer different gameplay.
  
  
  
  • This one is a little hazy, if only because I don't believe that the player should be able to directly control the robots. The basic premise is that they are largely "fire and forget". You can give them rudimentary (emphasis mine) commands: patrol here, open fire, stay put, etc. and for the most part the idea is that they play a purely supportive role - they're not going to win many battles for you single-handedly (their power curve is intentionally limited) but they are, essentially, extra, expendable party members that can perform odd jobs you cannot or merely the ones don't want to do.
    
    
    
    • The point of the profession, honestly, is less about how you build robots and more about how you use them. If you're building a computer for gaming as opposed to, say, desktop-only work, you simply purchase more expensive/slightly different hardware; the basic process of construction, however, is the same. Thus, the "robots" created by the profession are utility robots - you don't get to make CP3O, that sounds rather involved. For now, anyway.
      

I completely twisted the idea of parallel computing in my quest for ease of use and created a simple concept based on the idea of multiple robots working in tandem. You essentially have a "robot core" which is, more or less, a processor that can recieve certain instructions (all of which are premade and presented via UI). As stated previously, the actual instructions you can give a given "robot" is dictated by the attachment you place upon it. So, a "robot core" that is given a missle launcher is able to understand all basic "weapon" commands in addition to, as an example, the command to "mercilessly carpet bomb" something.

As also stated previously, for a "fully functional" (movement + some activity) you need at least two robot cores: one to control movement and the other to do whatever you want. At the moment, my idea is that the maximum number of "cores" you can have is limited to 2-3 or so - after all, I want robots to be expendable and making "super robots" doesn't make a lot of sense with this goal in mind.

Standard Kyan-quality diagram to further muddle the issue:

For skill usage, it seemed to make little sense to impose arbitrary restrictions based on skill level. I felt a more practical metric was price - after all, newbies to a given hobby are never allowed near expensive equipment for fear they'll accidentally damage it. Thus, a given skill level allows you to use and apply attachments that fall below a specific price range. This naturally deliniates basic parts from specific, rare attachments since rare quality implies special attention and custom work is always more expensive.

Lastly, continuing with the idea of "choice" and "composition", any robot that hasn't been blown to pieces can be retrieved and all retrieved robots - or robots that currently reside in the player's inventory - can be decomposed into their subsequent "robot" parts. This lets you replace ineffective robots on the fly, provided you can do so in a safe manner. It's important to note, however, that you can't decompose them further into their basic parts - e.g. the robot core and whatever item you used to determine functionality.

I apologize for the length of this, I got a bit carried away.

Keeping in mind the general guidelines as posted by JBadams I am still very much interested in other profession possibilites or even working "classic/traditional" professions in such a way as to bring them inline with the theme of this thread.[/quote]
*rubs eyes tiredly* Oi, I totally missed that edit and mildly misread the title when I started writing this, my apologies. *ponder* For an MMO, introducing limits per-person (to prevent turtling and/or abuse and reinforce expendability) and increasing variation (e.g. dividing generalized functions into specifics, such as "radar" into "track hostiles" or something) would work fine. Expanding the command system to include "meta" commands (e.g. certain combinations open up additional command options) for player's to find would introduce further activities for robots to execute. I suppose that takes things a little too far, as it essentially turns it into a mechanical variation of "monster breeding", but it's still a thought.

The ability to "decompose" robots can make for some interesting trading scenarios.

Furthermore, adding controllability to certain robots would probably be fun. I'm reminded of the aerial battles I had in WoW courtesy of Christmas presents and the races using the-racer-control-thing-whose-name-currently-escapes-me. Anyway, the point is that controlling robots can add a lot of fun, albeit generally not a lot of pure gameplay.

The original design was for a single player game but compositional professions are easy to expand; in this case, simply adding additional parts for the robots to the game would suffice. On the whole, compositional systems tend to be quite similar. The key concept is to ensure that the components that are added have a viable reason to be in the game. Part of the reason I was/am so obsessed with keeping the price down is to reduce the opportunity cost of less-than-optimal combinations. Furthermore, it's important to introduce actions that are robot-only.

Anyway, I figured I'd just throw that out there.

Secondly, I suppose (because I'm not certain if the idea is any good) I'll share my "pet" profession for a project I'm working on. It's a space-based RPG so I apologize if you wanted medieval only ideas.

Ah should have mentioned -- was not restricted to genre type other than being an MMO - Magic as used in my earlier breeding example is just as replaceable by genetic engineering for example.

For an MMO, introducing limits per-person (to prevent turtling and/or abuse and reinforce expendability) and increasing variation (e.g. dividing generalized functions into specifics, such as "radar" into "track hostiles" or something) would work fine. Expanding the command system to include "meta" commands (e.g. certain combinations open up additional command options) for player's to find would introduce further activities for robots to execute. I suppose that takes things a little too far, as it essentially turns it into a mechanical variation of "monster breeding", but it's still a thought.

The ability to "decompose" robots can make for some interesting trading scenarios.

Furthermore, adding controllability to certain robots would probably be fun. I'm reminded of the aerial battles I had in WoW courtesy of Christmas presents and the races using the-racer-control-thing-whose-name-currently-escapes-me. Anyway, the point is that controlling robots can add a lot of fun, albeit generally not a lot of pure gameplay.

I like it -- I think in the context of the thread it has possibilities to play around with - For example: Profession: Robotics engineer (steampunk thoughts run through my head here)- A class that tinkers with all form of mechanicals designing new possibilities ranging from miniature keypicking robots to unmanned drones providing aerial views to war machines to house cleaners etc etc. In similar fashion to the previous idea jeffereytitan proposed of an arcane language you could implement a very basic programming like structure that the player unravels to make full use of the robotic possibilities. I must admit my mind is a bit aghast at thinking about the technical aspects in terms of design but I am probably overthinking it without study. In some ways it seems to mesh in well with both my breeding idea as well the idea proposed by jeffereytitan. Nicely done.

Crafting is a tricky beast to handle -- on one hand, people want minigames, when the whole idea is new and fresh to them (new player). On the other hand, one has to grind it to gain skill points to get to new heights, to get new meaningfull content (veteran players). The latter appreciates lack of minigames due to the absurd amount of time and dedication that one would have to give in order to become profiecient. Guess this is easilly countered by some kind of quality system, in which a minigame would allow a minor boost in a created resource (better armor, better weapon), while crafting an item w/o the minigame would churn out an average quality item...

Definitely a tricky beast indeed. One system might be to throw out skill points alltogether and simply make success within the mini-game be the reward i.e. a new type of mount, a cloak of fire resistance, a stealth capable robot spy etc dependant on how you played the mini-game the different results you would obtain. It is not inconceivable that one crafter might breed a unique mount and then literally has cornered an economic market or alternatively an alchemist concocts a potion which can instantly sober you etc I think that there should be in some respects the capacity to create ordinary items fairly easily but I want the more exotic, rare, epic items to be earnt and more so offer a value in some respects to a crafter. In some respects the use of the word mini-game is somewhat of a misnomer but it does in essence cover what I am trying to reach for.

a trainer profession would be something fresher. A player would be capable of teaching other players his/her skills, such as combat, magic, stealth. It could be a rhytmic game, where both players have to press the right buttons. Or a quest-like distraction, such as the master and the student going on a journey like in the Disney films, where the student learns harmony, ballance and the master helps them along the way. It would be a nice and climatic version of power-leveling -- a high-level character would feel important, could probably house a school in his posession, gaining the Teacher skill and giving new players a good kick-start.

I actually hadn't considered this particular thought - I like it - There are a number of different social elements that could be bought into play here affecting the server community persay. Nicely done.

Exorcist could be a fun variation on the lockpicking skill. The player would be given cursed/possessed items/chests that could be unlocked via a puzzle/logics minigame, or a connect the dots fashion distraction. A good exorcist could then maybe bless items, working as a part-time enchanter. In such a gameworld, there would be foul creatures that would drop sealed loot, and exorcists would be the go-to people to get that fixed.

Exorcists/Puzzle masters - specialists in locks etc. this one could be interesting as it would lend itself more to a person who actually enjoys puzzle solving as opposed to say a "typical" player. One way in which to make something like this work I could see is all puzzled(locked) items get handed into one location and a set bounty placed against each puzzle being solved. The player who handed the puzzle in gets their opened prize back minus their bounty deposit. The puzzle master earns the bounty. Not too mention travel to distant and exotic locales in order to solve the riddle of the 4 Seals and a Turkey Giblet (highly secret puzzle developed by ancient monkish order of monkish monkies). This would also enable player developed content to be filtered into the game in an unusually simple way. Of course the other part of the profession being the design of locks hmm have to think about that one.

A profession that could be amusing, at least for a while, could be *instert flying transportation vehicle/animal* Pilot. Players would charge for taking a few players from place to place -- those that love to travel would have a great part-time job in the game that would take some time to accomplish. As a bonus, if the player did well (some aerial tricks, extra fast shortcuts), he could set an additional tip to his fee, rewarding those that are really into it. I know I'd love to take people around the game world, maybe establish a reliable communication network, cut some deals for fuel/animal food with some local player traders.

Not so sold on this one - It definitely provides a service persay but I think as even as you observe (A profession that could be amusing, at least for a while,) it doesn't hold enough long-term value (unless [[IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE INGAME RACISM> IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED OR A GNOME THEN TOUGH!]] of course you are an out-of-town gnome living in the land of elves holding several doctorates in wizardology all of which mean nothing as you can't obtain appropriate recognition) - If anyone can think of an angle that could make it a long-term time sink I would love to hear it.

Huntsman -- a profession that takes care of the local monster population. Huntsmen would be given quests at their lounge to introduce new species, perhaps control the current population of the monsters and so on. In that scenario, creeps would migrate and in order to find the quest monster you are looking for, one would have to seek out a huntsman who is on top of things. Such players would be able to eventually rank up and get to decide (in a reasonable degree) where monsters should be relocated and control their populations.

This reads to me as more of a class rather than as a profession. but then again have to think about this one.


Thank you some good ideas. I offer you a virtual cookie which does not crumble, or taste or even exist sadly .

Not so sold on this one - It definitely provides a service persay but I think as even as you observe (A profession that could be amusing, at least for a while,) it doesn't hold enough long-term value (unless [[IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE INGAME RACISM> IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED OR A GNOME THEN TOUGH!]] of course you are an out-of-town gnome living in the land of elves holding several doctorates in wizardology all of which mean nothing as you can't obtain appropriate recognition) - If anyone can think of an angle that could make it a long-term time sink I would love to hear it.

I admit I'm a sucker for flying at high speeds using a gryphon, or any other contraption that shouldn't fly according to real-life aerodynamics and is probably too unsecure to mount whatsoever. The profession would make sense in a setting where NPC travelling would be either too costy or inconvinient -- like in WoW, you sometimes have to take such lenghty routes and dump some gold and time to actually get somewhere. There pilots could just pick you up where you are and deliver you to town, with some currency gained in the process. Think GTA Taxi mini-game -- then again, every player would just become a pilot. Making it difficult to gain a mount and maintain it? Something like in the Avatar movie -- a quest before you actaully get your own vehicle, you get attached to it, perform some feats, maybe chuck in a mechanic that such pilots could chart some unknown lands, bring parties to randomized dungeons. There are as many pros as cons on this -- meh, I ust like flying

[/quote]

Inline with some of thoughts you suggest here I was also thinking about the ideas of actually making flying dangerous which may lend itself to piloting. Using WoW as an analogy and some of the flight paths taken by the griffons or the many scattered zeppelin wrecks you could build in risk factors such as weather or if flying between the trees a spider leaping out at you etc. Making a risk / reward scenario might give this feasibility. However portals do make MMO's kill this idea to a degree. A secondary aspect was the idea of the "teacher" as one of the learning processes shepherding a group of unruly teenaged NPC's on an oversized flying "bus-type" creature for a field trip with appropriate hazards, "incidents" etc.

Strange thing though, when you finish that last level, there is nothing left but those professions. Maybe it is something that people didn't think of -- why reroll a character, if you can retain your killer face-eating orc and make him pursue a degree in artistic smithing. There would be a lot of new content, and his (the player's) level would only help to ward off the monsters -- he would finally have time to entangle himself in a proper story-line. No rush or competition, just a journey of discovery.

And thus you unravel the purpose of this entire thread -- creating meaningful time-sinks outside the straightforward "level up and then do end-game at which point sit around bored or leave until new content"

Your virtual cookie now contains a fortune

Well I haven't posted here about my game much but in this case I have some on topic stuff to discuss.

I am a big fan of VOWs which are a subset of mmorpgs. Virtual Online Worlds. You could stick MM on the front and/or RPG on the back but its a lot of letters so assume its implied.

In any case I have been working on a purely PvE game where ideally players would spend 40% or less of their game time in combat. Ie 60% on organizing, crafting, building and so forth.

As part of this I created some complex travel, building and crafting systems, with minigames, although for a cut in effect you can skip them. This applies to climbing, sailing, flying ships, directing vehicles, land air or sea mounts, special travel systems and magic as well as crafting.

Basically players can learn any skills they want but skills can be trained infinitely, although with diminishing returns.
Professions don't really exist, you can effectively play out your own profession with any goal by picking skills that are good for it.

For instance an airship player could learn the airship minigame, learn windreading, weather predicting, maybe some mechanics for repairs, although you could have another player on your crew be a pure mechanic? You could be a player who is a crafter but only crafts specialized airships parts.

You could be a pioneer. Maybe you have high climbing skills, good rope and wood crafting, so you could climb canyons and make bridges, and the game pretty much allows you to pursue just that career. You will probably want to do other things too though.

Basically if you allow the player freedom to do as they please it makes it more interesting. Infinite skill systems might seem overpower but consider that if you were a top tier warrior an half decent player could buy an airship and kill you and you couldn't hit them. Similarly you could craft the best airships in the world but a half decent air ship player could also have combat skills and all you could do was run.

I noticed you talked about teaching. The system I have has some sorts of teaching although its not explicit. For instance if you are climbing a mountain you pick your best climber to be the lead climber and that gives you a temporary boost to climbing skills, a % of the difference between his skill and yours, allowing you to tackle more difficult slopes. Further your climbing skills gets a bonus to its growth in this circumstance. Similarly if you craft in an area with lots of other crafters and/or crafters who are better than you you get boosts to skill gain and maybe to project results.

I was thinking about having some sort of teaching system that is more explicit though. Maybe just an addon to the social bonuses. Like if you simply watch a master craft, or he crafts an example and you craft your own attempt at the same design, you get an increase to skill growth compared to if you had crafted alone. Similarly he gets a small boost because he has to think and focus and explain what he is doing and how. Obviously you don't literally explain it because games can't process that, but you could roleplay that if you wanted. So each of you is being benefited by this as opposed to both crafting alone. You could also be paying for him to teach or be an apprentice and handle prep and gathering and then observe him working on a commission from another player.

As I said most of the actual effects of this would be an area scan for other crafters and for people building the same items and then a % bonus to experience. But you could roleplay it as more realistic.