An Online (not going to say MMO) RPG where after all goals are met by a certain race the game is finished, reset and begun again. Unlike other ORPGs out at the moment (that I am aware of) this concept involves set overall race goals, instead of constant battle between sides and side quests. Features: 01 - Races/factions don't have a set diplomatic stance against each other; alliances can be formed or broken at any time. Random 'Start Locations' at beginning of each new world. Diplomatic relations allow races to trade, give, demand etc to other races. 02 - A News system that is actually important; Know what's going on in your world. 'Race 1 offered resources to Race 2 in exchange for Peace' etc. 03 - Game world evolves from start to finish; timeline where upon new world the races are limited; small but as time advances towns become cities etc; Much like an RTS the races (which are not player controlled but may be player suggested; meaning players have an input system where the computer can take into account player requests etc or may have Game Masters to control races in a form such the same as those text based RTS games such as kings of chaos, utopia etc) evolve and progress through tech trees allowing for better access to items etc. Start with basic Blacksmith etc... advance to many more shops/options of items etc. Race would start with say, small city, 3 towns each. Then able to expand, colonise new area. Able to overtake other towns. Generated NPC and Quests: When game is reset NPC names, appearance etc are randomly generated; also the quests given are generated but most likely would involve the same variables 'collect' 'number' 'item' 'bring to' 'take to' 'kill' 'MOB' etc but are random and could be generated to need of race. This could extend to the boring task of collecting a resource such as... food or anything. Though one or two set characters will always be named the same, such as beginning area. Also buildings, NPCs etc are randomly located in set structures. Think of a grid. Inside the grid 1 building may be set to be placed, inside that building the NPC's also added, or outside. But all of the placing is inside this set grid area on a selected square. As a city expands, the grid size would be increased. Districts/layouts would be defined. Buildings/NPC rotation would apply by a check to surrounding buildings and overall city direction. 04 - Guild System allowing for a building with NPC's to be placed, could have a becon point even that a guild leader would have, an item that when activated sets a marker for GMs to place a Guild Building, so could be anywhere. Gms would obviously not build a guild building randomly over some other structure etc. But would be able to have on an even ground (the building could have stilts) and over water. All MOBs in area would be moved as game world would place mobs in random location over set area - so rock monsters always around rock area, water, water etc etc. Would just move MOB spawn further away. Could not build guild with in closeness to other guild building. 05 - Trade System that can effect a races development - tax on items, money spent on items goes to race for resources. No NPC has set number of items from store, will sell items they bought for an increased price (but hey, it would be for a cause ;0). Trade would also extend to other races. 06 - World Events; A town/city may be attacked by MOBs; help defend. Items might appear for certain time, etc. Battles, raids etc. Game ends and world reset according to traditional RTS conditions. - No enemies left, etc.

um, no one comment?

You can flame the crap out of it if you like, just wanted some responses/feedback. Discussion, Do you think players would like the idea of working towards something,

Do you think they would like a resetting world... meaning they start again. from lvl 1.

By resetting the world, you lose persistence, and RPG players tend to like persistence. If you reset the world under certain conditions, isn't that a bit like a victory condition in an RTS game, or any other game? So it ceases to be a differentiating factor - or rather, the difference is that your game becomes like other (non-persistent) games.

Instead of resetting the whole world, you could reset part of it.

Lets say that a mission was to capture a enemy city by killing all their guards. If one team does this, the mission is reset, but so that the city is now owned by those player's faction. The guards are theirs and that faction is not offered that mission. However other factions are offered that mission and can try to take over the city (and if successful that new faction would gain control over the city).

This way the world evolves, you get mission resets and you don't have to reset the characters.

You could then have different cities with different defensive strengths so as to cater for characters of different levels.

krez:

It could be balanced to last from anywhere from 6 months to a year? And yes they would carry over stats such as 'awards' etc like that. Increase in rank. I think the main aspect of this would be that people will pull together better, your not in the game just for yourself, your there for the PvP aspect.

Level would be much quicker/or all rounded than traditional games. I just put this Idea out there because I felt when playing games like WOW, Anarchy Online, Silkroad (which is the best in my opinion except for the crappy alchemy system)that your just there repeating the same old same old and it never truely ended like a traditional game would (meaning an RPG, RTS, any game that you work to 'finish').

It would try to have a very re-playable system. And if you look at MMORPG's there are many people that start new characters all the time when they have other characters.

Maybe there is no levelling. You just gain items, etc. You pick a class, pick your skills and off you go.

Raids would have to be planed out.

Giving the illusion at least that the characters aren't the same, your not totally familiarising with the game world.

fzambetta:

Show me :)

I like the idea of a resettable online game, since it is the only way to give a real purpose or goal in an online game.

I'd make it time-based, however. As time passes, darkness grows until the final battle against The Big Evil. (classical theme from fantasy books)
The players have to prepare and coordinate themselves in order to have a sufficient powerful army for the final battle. But that's not just preparation, since the agents of The Big Evil try to weaken the world through both political and armed interventions.

A lot of pre-defined events happen or not depending on what was done before, which makes gameplay very dynamic and also makes playing again very interesting.
It's really playing a story and trying to alter the course of events so that one side may win.

It could be reset from every 6 months to every 2 years, depending on what you come up with.

I am not sure it is such a problem if you lose all your experience etc. when playing the game again. If the game is very story- and roleplay- based, knowledge and understanding of the story and universe would be more useful than experience or resources acquired through lots of grinding.

An alternative to resetting would also to make the story circular, but that wouldn't work unless the game spans hundreds of lifetimes at least.