My whole problem is numbers. Also I wasn't suggesting a Zelda Game. I was saying that Zelda is a perfect example of player skill over numbers. Thank you everyone for your repkies. I love to hear your ideas. Also, thanks for not being douchebags and just saying no. I love feedback. By the way, that idea about the primitive game in which players create civilization, but from a ground level, is genius. I would play it.

Just quickly, about the idea with starting a civilisation from nothing then becoming something over time. I've had to think about this a lot and I've come to believe a pure blank canvas while it could work would be an immense waste of time on the developer’s behalf considering even when new players join in they would never start right from the start unless they wanted to just for fun. The greatest aspect of an MMO is the social freedom and guilds would rush to supply new groups with resources to help them get started.

I've tried to focus on is why build a city in the first place? Games like MineCraft are awesome with the total freedom you have to create anything you want but in the end unless your totally artistic and enjoy the end product the building needs a purpose. Designing the construction side of the game in an MMO around social attainment and management is the main path I'm focused on and hope to see become more common in the future.

You'd have to pick a range on the continuum, but I think there's plenty of room for a rags-to-riches progression. Taking WoW again, even among top-level characters, there's a whole spectrum of wealth and sophistication. Consider this:

Rags: A level 80 character who soloed all the way up, runs daily quests or the odd pick-up group to earn money and faction standing and is equipped with the best gear he can find or earn alone will be pretty poor. He'll earn a few dozen gold a week, spending some of it on potions and ammo and food, tucking the rest away for the next mount or to pay someone to enchant his gear. His guild, if he has one, is small and largely inactive, little more than a shared chatroom for low-impact guys like himself.

Riches: That same level 80 character, with a good guild and support group, will have constant access to dozens of like-minded players who'll be active in his timezone. He'll make his money running high-level instances, raids and PvP operations where his share of the net loot is far greater than what he could earn on his own. He'll gain access to a steady stream of potions and gear that his mates can make, and there will always be an in-house market for whatever he loots or crafts. He'll also gain access to bind-on-pickup gear from those high-level dungeons that no solo player would have a prayer of earning.

So if you set your range as being the fairly common copper dagger -> mythril broadsword spectrum, you'll have "newbies" out there in a dirty loincloth with a primitive weapon, scratching a living from bare rock, and the more advanced players will be galloping around on steel-clad warhorses with burnished breastplates and high-quality packaged foodstuffs to enjoy. Include destruction of goods, as in EvE Online, and it's the infrastructure, rather than the character stats, that'll determine uberness.

Maybe some examples for the simple minded?...... not me I swear ^^

Edit: Even some links to the articles you have written would be good.

[Edited by - Robert-Glen on July 8, 2009 3:27:57 PM]

You want to know the funny part? This was my first post. TechnoGoth's post is what made me create an account on here because I feel like I needed to be heard. I agreed with him, and I really do wish that more people would be open-minded and give it a shot. Seriously, if I knew how to create my own game, I would do it and try to make it perfect. Unfortunately, though, I still haven't figured out how to create my own Ragnarok server. I'm hoping this forum will help.

I personaly have never felt there is a point to grinding. I do however see that there is a reason it's being used. When the player does something good, defeat an enemy or finish a quest, they are rewarded. If one were to remove all player stats, how would you reward the player? There's abviously different solutions, but that's the reason player stats are common. I've also heard form some former WoW adicts that playing a game were nothin si saved from session to session just dosen't feel as rewarding. Ofcource, you improve your skills, but that doesn't really affect you because there are probably still people who beat you up easily. I don't htink ginging level should be a requierment to play(need max level to have a shot at PvP) but instead, the levels should be gained passivly by just playing, which means you have to make outher goles for the players to strive for.

If you still wish persu this goal, I sugest you take a look at games of entierly different ganres. RTS for example, is usually about using the best counter strategy and performing it at a high APM. Like your question of "why grinding" I ask "why classes"? Why not let all players use whatever method they want. The more options the better meta-game.(as long as they are balanced and have different outcomes) Obviously you should ahve some limit, and you might use classes anyways, but as a general idea, you should give the players many ways to play.

One last sugestion. Check out "GunZ online the duel". It's a lobby based online multiplayer game. When you kill people you gain bounty and exp. Exp doens't do shit in combat, but at higher level you can equip better gear. Gear which you buy for your bounty. Since this game is so havily based on skill, a player with level 1 gear could beat a character with level 20 gear if he's skilled enought. Also, servers have different lobys for players of different levels. So anouther reward for gaining levvel is that you get to play in the higher level lobys. Also, they have some maps with level requierments, which is also quite rewarding. For example, once you hit level 20 you cna play a castle stage that wasen't available befor.

I have seen GunZ before. That seems like a nice game. A similar one I played was S4 League, which is more of a sport game, but it has deathmatch. The reason I pitched Elder Scrolls is for the fact that you don't have to kill loads of creatures to run faster or to increase your aiming ability. One game of which I have heard is MAbinogi, and apparently it does not give classes, but is allows you to learn pretty much any skill. That is my kind of game. But I am wanting something without levels. As I have said before, a player-controlled government in which users elect other users as, let's say, a king. I was thinking that a king character could be given some bodyguards that the king can customize himself to make them as protective as possible, but the possibility remains that if one were to get past them and kill the king.... That's what I mean. We don't know what would happen next.

You are generally going to have some stats in an RPG. If you don't have anything that sets one character apart from another then you are closer to running a FPS or similar game relying completely on the users skill levels themselves.
This doesn't mean you ahve to have classes or even leveling, but something has to set the characters apart from one another. You can do this completely with equipment but then you are basically making a more indepth version of "Hexen".
All games have stats if they are on a machine (even if the player never sees the stats). That is what code basically is. How you distribute the stats is what makes a game unique and different and fun. Pokemon (don't throw rocks at me yet) did this by having the stats be in the creatures you summon instead of the actual character. FPS rely basically on equipment and the players' hand eye coordination to make it fun, driving games put the stats in the vehicles, etc.

They have tried RPGs that basically rely on the player to aim and fire spells and bows or what have you with mixed results. A different approach might be to utilize a "board game" style to determining the outcome of encounters. Of course then you get the outcry that you've basically made a strategy game instead of an RPG.

Thought provoking post! Thanks!