Let's build an MMO.

[FrostyBoy]

Ok, if you have read my thread in the off-topic forum, you know what I am doing.

For those who don't know, here is a quick run down - I have until September to come up with a great game idea, if I succeed, I may recieve funding to have it built.

My idea is a real world MMO. I'm not exactly sure yet how it's all going to work, all I know right now is that its ambitious yet interesting and exciting.

So if you want to contribute your ideas and suggestions, please do so. I will use this thread to dump whatever work I have done. Hopefully by September, I will have something significant to show. I aim to have fully fleshed out ideas about how the game mechanics will work/connect with each other.


==================================

A basic rundown of where I am up to so far:

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Continents
A continent is equivalent to one of the two islands seen in WoW.
There are 9 continents:
North America
Mesoamerica
South America
Africa
Europe
Mesopotamia
Russia
Asia
Oceania


ZONES
Each continent is seperated into zones. Every zone will have at least one small town and/or main city.
There are 52 zones:
British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Alaska, California, Texas, Montana, Illinois, New York, Florida
Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Jamaica
Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina
Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Madagascar, Congo
Great Britian, Scandanavia, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Iceland
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey
Siberia, Eastern Russia
Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nepal
Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales


MAIN CITIES
These are equivalent to the main cities of WoW, e.g. Thunderfall, Undercity; but most likely much much bigger.
There are 20 main cities:
Toronto, Los Angeles, New York
Mexico City
Rio de Janeiro, Lima
Cairo, Nairobi
London, Paris, Rome
Jerusalem, Karachi
Moscow
Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, New Delhi
Auckland, Sydney


SMALL CITIES
Small cities are equivalent to the small cities in WoW, e.g. Crossroads, except quite a lot bigger.
There are 70 small cities:
Vancouver, San Francisco, Winnipeg, Houston, Denver, St Louis, Las Vegas, Washington, Miami, White Horse, St. Johns, Anchorage
Kingston, Havana, Monterry, San Salvador, Panama, San Juan, Cancun
Caracas, Buenos Aires, Tucuman, Brasilia, Cayenne, Quito, Santiago
Rabat, Luanda, Antananarivo, Monrovia, Cape Town, Pretoria
Athens, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Glasgow, Dublin, Oslo, Amsterdam, Vienna, Stockholm, Helsinki, Reykjavik
Istanbul, Baghdad, Dubai, Tehran, Yemen, Pakistan
Omsk, Irkutsk
Seoul, Taiwan, Xi'an, Vietnam, Bangkok, Kolkata, Hong Kong, Beijing, Kathmandu, Urumchi, Manila, Dili
Perth, Melbourne, Christchurch, Alice Springs, Darwin, Port Moresby

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A few notes:

Time setting of game: around 2000a.d.
It's not a fantasy or Sci-Fi game, this is a realistic world.
Your modes of transportation will be: Aeroplane, Car (which you have to purchase and drive yourself, think of it as a mount), Coach, Ferry or Walk.
Airports are only located in Main Cities.
You will not select your race or class at the start of the game, instead you will develop it during play. The more you do one thing, the better you get at it. When you reach a certain level in one class, your character will be permanantly fixed to that class.
There are wild animals in certain parts of the world, but you are not required to kill them, they are simply "barriers", thus, grinding is not an issue.
Because each zone may be quite large, may have to have loading times when entering a new zone. This is easily solved for Aeroplanes, but for roads, you will enter a checkpoint/border when entering a new zone.


A few ideas:
Purchase land, buildings
Start business (Sell cars, food, drugs, etc)
Start gang
Foriegn and Political management (relations, trading, etc)
Your path will depend on your starting location. If you start in the suburbs of America, you could become a Law Enforcer, or underground gang leader.
If you start in the slums of Bangkok, you may be an exotic goods trader or soldier, at war with Malaysia.
Players can run for president of a zone, once president they have settings that can alter the rules of that zone. (go to war, peace, close trade, open trade, etc)


Problems to solve:
How will quests work?
How will you gain experience?

[FrostyBoy]

The World Map

[FrostyBoy]

North America:



Central America/Mexico:


South America:

[FrostyBoy]

Europe:


Mesopotamia:


Africa:

[FrostyBoy]

Asia:


Oceania:

[Patroklos]

I would suggest naming your areas with accurate region names rather than countries/states. Instead of "Florida" use South East United States, or instead of "Germany" use "Northern Europe."

[Straybow]

He's from NZ, this is what the world looks like to him.

If NZ not only gets its own territory but also gets TWO cities, then the US gets at least a dozen territories and twenty cities.

[flash9286]

so what is the point of this game? Is it like second life? Or will you be able to fight and co op against other player.s

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I would suggest naming your areas with accurate region names rather than countries/states. Instead of "Florida" use South East United States, or instead of "Germany" use "Northern Europe."

I had thought of that, but it would make it boring. Who has ever heard of " South East United States"? It's too fictional. I would prefer to use real names that people can relate to.

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by flash9286
so what is the point of this game? Is it like second life? Or will you be able to fight and co op against other player.s

You tell me! I don't really know myself, I am just trying to get the river flowing here. I don't think "Second Life" would be any fun.

Fighting and co-op is a definite, it is the core of MMO's!
But I guess, this time it will be slightly different, instead of just killing people you don't like, you can hurt them in other ways, financial, hiring an assassin, destroying their property (car, house, business).

[FrostyBoy]

Just a quick update, I am going to use the Crysis editor to do samples of what each zone may look like.

[Space05us]

Neat idea, but MMOs are ****ing expensive and time consuming to build and maintain. A great game idea would be a single player console game with a great storyline, voiceacting, lighting, and pretty ****.

Also make sure to research Malaysian culture and give your idea a Malaysian twist.

You're a silly round eyed westerner after all, you like men in solid plate armor mounting horses in solid plate armor riding off into the sunset to slay the beastly dragon and save the voluptuous babe. After which she gives you a peck on the cheek and the story ends. If Malaysians are anything like Japanese people they want a dating sim where you get to be a beastly dragon who flies out to slaughter men in solid plate armor to liberate their voluptuous blond babes and **** them. Also they want it to be entirely composed of 30 minute cut scenes with 5 minutes inbetween where they actually control the character, but only to repeatedly tap one of two buttons. Well, not really, but you get my point, hopefully, if I even had a point.

[Jon Miller]

What do you have against Russia? Or is that for the expansion?

JM

[Nostromo]

I think you got it backwards. Think of the gameplay first, then think of the setting. With all due respect, what you've been describing so far is, gameplay wise, a pretty humdrum MMO that curiously takes place on 21th Century earth. I use the word "curiously" because that kind simplistic hack & slash gameplay is best suited IMO for fantasy or maybe SCi-FI settings. I'm not sure how you'll make it click in a real world setting.

The most interesting MMO I know of (again, gameplay-wise) is EVE. The possibilities are quite fascinating... If I was you, I'd start there and then take things at the proverbial next level...

[Will9]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy


I had thought of that, but it would make it boring. Who has ever heard of " South East United States"? It's too fictional. I would prefer to use real names that people can relate to.

Instead of South East US you could use Dixie which is a common nickname for the region, although you may want to add some of Texas to it if you do that. Also about the South: Atlanta>Miami. On Montana, Colorado is probably a better name for the region. On Vancouver, why is it in California? And on Chicago, I know you think it is just a backwater ****hole, but it is one of the country's most important cities and and it seems strange to have Illinois, but no Chicago.