I have to agree, I would like to see an rpg where the focus is on the story of the world, and the players are the important ones. All the current rpgs just set players against static quests, or realy lame quest generators. I've been trying to think of a dynamic quest engine, based on other factors that presripted concepts. My idea is to remove the exp gain from monster camping. And only reward xp based on other influences. Sneaking into a house and stealing npc property gains you xp. But this puts a quest on recovery of the item. If the player was scene it would put his name on the information. Upon having this quest generated by the player the other player to accept the mission can get xp from completing it.
If orcs(npc) attack a town, the town puts a bounty on the Orc. players accepting the mission will gain xp on finishing it. But the orc town attack is not scripted. By putting groups of people into bands you can orginize the scoiety structures needs and wants. If the orcs need food they attack dear,bear,lone people. If this need of food become desperate they will potentialy attack towns(leading to the previous comment). But this adds a simulation element to the game. You could base it on RTS types of game.

This would add alot to the ai programming of creating more of a simulation world and less on the production of more static quests.

Other issues is that the town needs food, so the orcs and human hunters will come into contact. If there not desperate for the food they may not fight. but if they are then they will. This of course comes down to not respawning things all the time. put states on npc's like age,gender. Give the band a population stat. If this value is not met check to see if there is a male & female. If that's true check every so often to see if a child is born.

Anyway it's a much bigger design, and it's somthing I would like to see. And might do in the future.


Onto the voice.

I think the voice idea is a bad one. Mostly agreeing with other posts about the female voice. I occasionaly like to play a female, she would destroy the mood as soon as they heard my low voice. And this would cut out people who are deaf. Personaly I would like to use a Text to Voice engine in the game. With a little tweaking you can set the voice modulation. And on the same end if you wanted to you can add a Voice to Text interpretor. So my low voice ends up appearing as a female on the other side. And this would cut the bandwidth to no more than just text.

With a few more extra's like a Languange accent/slang tree that would change text of "the"(Human) to "de"(Ogre), this would realy add somthing to the rpg area. And people who are deaf, have the option to see the dialog in text. This is just a thought that's been brewing around in my head for some time.

Bandwidth costs, most of the time you're trying to cut bandwidth, and something like the Source or Unreal engine(s) whilst looking great are not exactly light on bandwidth.

They get their fabulous interactivity via shoving a tonne of data around every second, which is fine if you have many small games on many small servers being hosted by someone else. With an MMO (of any form) you are the host, and you dont just have a few people playing, you're looking for a lot, preferrably more than 100,000 people. If every single one of those people took up as much bandwidth as a single UT2004 player, your bandwidth costs would be enormous. I'll ask one of the server guys at work tomorrow, but it's frightening how much an extra 1kB per second can cost you when you have 100,000 players.

yeah the real problem is with groups of people, if have 20 people in a group, so you have to update each of these people with the other 19 data,
so your looking at 19 packets to each person which is so that's 19^2 packet (361)
now send them say 10 times a second that 3610 packets a second

so each packet is 30 bytes or 240 bits (remember bandwidth is in bits per second usually)

so that 866400 bps (866.4Kbps)

nasty huh :S
the packets size and rate of packet transfer are all just examples of the top of my head but you can see how things quickly scale up
try it with 100 users in one place and be afriad very afriad :)

Wouldn't the voice be very expensive bandwith wise unless the 3D sound processing was on the server?

Live voice is anti-RP.

You and your party find themselves lost in the thick of the swamp; the sun that shines above you is barely visible. A fog like haze eminates from the pool of sludge that surrounds and floods your boots. Moments earlier, a drake was severely wounded by your party and took to flight. It could be back at any point . Your companions are weak and wounded, fearing for their lives.

In the distance, a rustle. The foggy haze dances around as a beast descends upon your position. In a panic, your party rises to its feet and steadies itself. In their injured state, they're unprepared for what comes their way. Sweat pours from your brow, your palms are clamy as they grasp the hilt of your sword and unsheath the blade. You stand and wait.

The shadowy figure emerges. It's just a rabbit. A collective sigh of relief escapes the lungs of your group.

The party hears a crackling sound:
"HAHAH OH MY FUCKING GOD I THOUGHT WE WERE FUCKING GONNA GET PWNED BY PKS, IT'S JUST A FUCKING BUNNY."

End scene.

I'm not saying people really roleplay (at all) in MMORPGs, but listening to 13 year olds isn't going to help. Sometimes, the panic of combat and the silence of the keyboard (with the odd "RUN!") can do wonders for roleplaying, atleast to those who are receptive and appreciate it.

In line with the previous post's intentions of pointing out voice is "anti-RP" I'd like to provide some insight from one of the pioneers of massively multiplayer online gaming, Richard Bartle, in the following article here. I believe it fits in perfectly with the philosophy of the voice side of this discussion and couldn't be a more appropriate source.