Quote:Original post by Wixner
The short description is that some player will actually control the monsters in the world: instead of a lvl60 paladin, you have evolved from a lvl1 slime to a lvl60 golden dragon or something like that :)

Quote:Original post by someboddy
I'm hope you are not talking about faction-war-only gameplay. It didn't work very well on Face of Mankind.

Maybe if instead of having playes controll a monster, make players controll army of monsters in an RTS style gameplay. That way, the guys playing the heroes will still be able to slay the monsters.

Quote:Original post by yapposai
some more ideas:

make the free accounts to lure the players into the game.
free account players are like ghosts that can possess monsters. Let the monsters have little skill and even some weapons and equipment available to them. Orcs can wear armour, beasts can get skill or special attacks.

A free player can switch possessing monsters when they want to, provided there is another monster nearby. The free players also have levels. A new free-player can not posses the uber dragon while a older player with some kills can possess more powerful monsters. Inversely, the free player levels down each time the monster they control dies or does little damage to players. Monsters can only move in limited areas.

the free accounts also have time limits, say every X mins, the free player gets kicked out of the monster and either telported to another random monster in the world or disconnected.


hopefully the free players controlling the monsters will be make the game a bit more challenging and unpredictable. There is also the chance that the free players would want to try the subscription version to access more skills, etc.

The problem I see here is the AI. You would have some monsters become smart one moment (player controlled )and dumb the next(AI).

Quote:Original post by Wixner
First of all: This is not a "how-do-i-create-a-mmorpg" topic so holster your flamethrower.

Second of all: I am no MMORPG expert - in fact, the only MMORGP I've played seriously so far is World of Warcraft.

Until today, every MMORPG game has had the exactly same basic design: slaying monsters in the world is a very cheap way to gain new equipment and items. As in this World of Warcraft comic: http://www.worldofwar.net/comics/heroesofwow/chapter8/index.php, some monsters even got a very powerful weapon. This fact popped two questions in my head: why didn't the monster use that item in it's fight against you and how did the monster aquire such an item?

Quote:Original post by Fidelio66

This is just a question of game design. Some games generate random loot when a monster is killed, this can lead to the situation you describe. Other games have both monsters and players have an inventory, and depending on what armor/weapon the monster possesses calculate its attack and defense strength. The latter is much more attractive, and makes the orc with the rusted shortsword a lot easier to kill than the same orc with the steel +3 broadsword of lightning.
In Morrowind, when you sell items to a merchant and they are better than what they are wearing, they will often wear that item. And when you kill someone, what you loot is what they were wearing earlier. In games like Diablo, random loot falls to the ground on every kill.
Personally I think it's silly to think of eg. wolves walking around the forest with coins, potions, a helmet and a sword, when you can see they are obviously not equipping those items, nor do they have room to store them. You could just make your game such that animals can be looted for hides, meat, bones, etc. and that you only get weapons, armor, coins, etc. from humanoids.