As for me, I would support dating engine for the group making in MMO game. And one of the options could be the random, once you would like a change.
But this does not solve the original problem (quote below) I think. You will still have the same content, maybe you could have some unique role within micro society
of the group (with dating engine there might be a higher percentage of preserving the group, thats the improvement right?). But that is present even now for the luckier
or those trying hard and long.
I'm tired of MMO's. They are supposed to be super social games, but I find myself "soloing" for the most part and not giving a flip about anyone else out there. This got me thinking: no player in-game is special. They all get the same content. They all beat the same bosses and the outcome is the same for every story. I can do that in a single player game and feel like my character is the only one that matters. No so for an MMO.
Maybe solution to this would be a game of dungeon keepers faction vs heroes faction.
Simplified sketch what is meant by this:
The world strain- the heroes and dungeon keepers faction shares borders. There are battles (more or less periodical like one a week) in order to extend the lands for each faction. Place would be up to each faction's leadership. Multiple spots or one with concentrated army could be chosen. Oposite faction would be informed via scouting on the oposite faction land. The bigger army, easier to detect and longer time to concentrate. Winning the battle would steal one tile made by natural obstacles or fortifications.
For both factions it is not directly player character who are meant to fight the battles. Each faction has its IA army, players improves conditions for the AI army through their voluntary civil job. Improvement of the condition for the army could be by scoutig the battlefield, paying taxes, making armory, various kind of sabotage, seeding traps on the potential battlefield etc. However if player wants, it would be nice to allow him to support the faction army directly by the sword.
Heroes faction> player can support the faction via tax payed and after proving his citizenship by this, he can also accept civilian job and climb in it higher, but the higher position means more time sacrificed for the faction, more important decisions to make and more confidential informations to have. Also death caused from civilian job would be permadeath. Civilian jobs could be - ranger, merchant, soldier, blacksmith, farmer etc. each with standard career path. At the begging these positions would be carried by AI.
For higher positions there could be elections.
On the other hand player can utilize his spare time to increase his class level via some classical quest accomplishment, dungeons searching and plundering etc.
Dungeon keepers faction> player will get some budget in order to found his first dungeon of various type which will give him a role he plays for the faction.
Basical dungeons types would be- hide, workshops, for trainig units -something like barracks, hero tempting :-)
each dungeon property would be purpose, stealhiness, position, capacity, unique methods it holds.
And some properties would interact to the others -capacity vs stealhiness. So to make a stealthy dungeon that can be placed close to borders with high capacity can be quite costly.
