Greetings. I’m Sinnombre. I’m a 21 year old undergraduate student majoring in both computational physics and philosophy, and I’ve been playing computer/consol games all my life (and I mean all my life. I started with Zork, Populous, and an NES). My favorite games are rpgs, especially those with immersive storylines molded by player choices. I have also played a number of mmos, most notably EVE (I played about six month, including some time with one of the major alliances), Guild Wars (I have completed all four campaigns and played a fair amount of pvp) and WOW (the highest I’ve gotten is level 60). In every mmo I’ve tried, there have been several factors I truly enjoyed. Unfortunately, there were also annoyances that eventually drove me away. Needing to grind for weeks before the game could be fully enjoyed, uninspired design, and limited possible builds leading to endless repetition were a few of the common ones. However, I feel that a mmo could exist that combined the aspects I enjoyed while avoiding the common pitfalls. And so with that in mind, I composed this list/description of my perfect mmo.

General:

First a few definitions. By faction, I mean an npc faction, like the Darkspear trolls and Ironforge in WOW, or the Gallente and Syndicate in EVE. By guard, I mean an npc character associated with a faction who defends their territory and enforces their justice. By soldier, I mean an npc hired by a player or player guild.

My mmo would take place in a large world. Akin to EVE, the npc factions would control the central area, about a third the land. The rest of the world would be completely lawless. The mobs there would be more powerful, and players would be especially vulnerable to attack from other players. In fact, it would be recommended never to leave faction territory without at least a small party. The factions wouldn’t all necessarily border each other, so players would often have to brave the outside in order to travel to foreign lands. If the factions are allied, they will likely patrol the roads connecting them, but such patrols are sporadic…

Death:

In almost every modern game, a player’s death is little more than a minor hindrance. And if dying is inconsequential, what challenge is left in a game? There’s no reason to be cautious, there’s no reason to play smart, you can just charge your enemies like a General Pickett every time and if you die more often than not, so what? In my game, death would be something any player would strive to avoid. EVE takes this too far, with you losing your ship and everything on it. With so much to risk, few players (whether solo or in a fleet) are willing to commit to battle unless they have a clear numerical or technological advantage over their enemies, or have been playing long enough to accumulate such wealth that even losing a ship was inconsequential. Indeed, many “fleet battles” end up being little more than two fleets dancing around a system, neither willing to engage the other. In other games, dying only causes you to fail a mission or quest, or suffer a small death penalty. For example in WOW, even a party wipe only means that everyone must run back to the raid entrance. My ideal game would strike a balance between these two extremes. In my game, when you die, you will drop the contents of all your bags as well as one random piece of equipment (or possibly two), and lose a large amount of xp (possibly down to your most recent ‘level’ (see leveling below)). You then respawn in town or at a respawn shrine. If you are the first player to reach your corpse, you can of course retrieve all your belongings. If someone else gets there first, they can loot your body. Thus, for newer players with cheaper weapons and armor death is bad, but not crippling. For older players, however, a death can cost you a large amount of experience and many valuable possessions.

To protect one’s most treasured items, my game would allow armor and weapons to be soulbound, ensuring that they will never drop. However, a soulbound item cannot be traded; they are only useful to the player who binds it. Soulbinding will be ridiculously expensive as well; literally 10-100 times the market value of the equipment. This would ensure that while death remained a major factor, players could escape the worst of it…if they were willing to pay the price. Also, allowing soulbinding would help the in game economy; see economy below. Finally, certain high-end items cannot be soulbound (I’m thinking items of power/rarity between purples and oranges in WOW). These unique items would be more powerful than any others in the game, but would you be willing to risk using one? Other players would covet it. They might even kill for it. Of course, a player using one of these items would not want to soulbind his other equipment; if everything else is soulbound, as soon as he dies he will be guaranteed to drop his unique piece.

Additionally, players can have a single soulbound pouch. This will be the smallest of the bags, and thus will not fit weapons or armor (or rings/amulets). It will fit potions, quest items, and non-equipable gear, like an enchanting rod or mining pick from WOW. All players will start with (or an early quest will give) a 4-slot soulbound pouch. 6 slot pouches can be made by players with the necessary skills, or purchased from a bag merchant, at substantially more than the cost of making one. 8 slot soul bags can be made only by players who have maxed out the bag-making skills (like tailoring). In arenas, battlegrounds and other organized pvp events, the dropping rules would be suspended; only in world deaths (including world pvp) will items be lost.

Leveling:

The fact that equipment can be lost so easy means that ganking would be a major problem. Therefore, my mmo would be more like EVE and Guild Wars than WOW in terms of player power. In WOW, a level 40 player could take any number of level 10s. A level 70 player is all but invincible to level 50s. This means that a potent player can run around ganking lower level characters with almost no risk, as indeed often happens in WOW. In my game, where dying is actually bad, this power disparity could destroy the experience for new players. In EVE, on the other hand, though skills train in real time, a player of 4 years can have little real advantage over one of 3 months. The skills that take a month to train that the older player has only add 2-5% per level to his damage output, and even those are soon maxed out. If we were to duel in equivalent ships (say battleships), much more important would be player skill and the ship’s build (whether for pvp or mission running or fleet support, etc.). Even more important than that would be the presence of friends. If I had a buddy with me, even one who had only played a week and had a few covert ops. jamming mods thrown into his noob ship, the older player wouldn’t have a prayer. Leveling in my game would fit the latter mold. Perhaps it would be like Guild Wars, where players rapidly attain the maximum level. In my game, this could be done in a sheltered environment where pvp was not possible. Perhaps after reaching max level xp would go to utility skills, like tailoring or blacksmithing. Or perhaps, as in Guild Wars, xp would be needed to buy more spells and abilities. The point is, by the time a player left noobland and entered zones where world pvp was allowed, he would be capable of holding his own against a person who had been playing the game for years.

World PvP:

World pvp is one of my favorite parts of many mmos. From random encounters while questing in WOW (should you strike now before he notices you? Perhaps there is no need. If you /wave, will he reply in kind, or would it cost you the element of surprise?) to full blown territorial wars in EVE (with complex fleet operations, supply line harassment tactics, and betrayals at the highest levels), the risks and possibilities of world pvp add tension and excitement to every part of a game (even the grinding). In my mmo, world pvp would be extremely prevalent. Even while questing, you would need to watch your back. At any time, anyone would be able to attack anyone else they encountered. This aspect of the game would be very much like EVE. There would be many instanced environments, some for solo questing and some like raids made for groups, where you would be safe from players. But for the most part, one must constantly be wary. In npc towns, the guards would respond to any aggression. That is to say, if you start attacking another player in town, the guards will fuck you up. However, their response time would not be immediate. If you had a small group, and were truly willing to die to execute another player, you would have time before the guards crushed you. In central towns, like the capitals and major cities of each npc faction, the guards would be all but invincible. In more remote regions, however, a large, dedicated group could raid a town and eliminate all the npcs (and other players, if that was their desire).

In order to discourage complete chaos, any act of aggression against a player or faction npc inside a faction’s territory would result in a standings loss for the offending player and his guild. Note that this includes all the territory claimed by the faction, not just the cities (faction boundaries would be clearly marked, for instance by walls). The loss would be greater in a city, and greatest of all in the capital, but anywhere in the territory unwarranted violence towards another player or faction npc would lose standings. If a person’s standings (or his guild’s) got low enough, the faction’s guards would attack the player on sight. Thus, a player or guild that harassed other people in faction controlled land would quickly find moving about in that land increasingly difficult. More on this is below in the section on npc factions. As in EVE, there would be a way of officially declaring war between two player guilds that would allow you to kill one another without reprisal in an npc faction’s countryside, but even then no faction would appreciate you bringing your war into their cities. Also as in EVE, there would no doubt often be player bandits just outside the territory controlled by npc factions, waiting for unsuspecting players to kill and loot. If they come within site of the border, the guards would chase them off. Otherwise…anytime you choose to leave civilization, you do so at your own peril.

Possible additions; if you are killed by a faction npc, should that npc loot your corpse (i.e. the contents of your bags and the one dropped item would be permanently deleted from the game world)? This would further discourage aggression in faction controlled territory and further aid the economy.

Npc Factions:

The npc factions that control the central territories would be a major part of my game. There would be a large number of them, and while some would be allies, others would be at war. These relations would drive the storyline. Players would begin the game as members of one of these factions, though they would be free to enter the territory of and serve any of the npc empires, with the possible exception of one faction who is mortal enemies with their own race. Players could do missions for any factions, though gaining standing with one faction would mean losing it with that faction’s enemies (both directly and indirectly, in that the missions would likely involve killing that faction’s members). As players gain standing with one faction, they would get harder and more important missions. Factions would give players quests that require them to enter disputed territory and eliminate enemy guards, disrupt their trade and mining operations, and eventually seize towns in contested regions. Later missions could even involve killing players of high standing with their enemies and invading their home territories to attack towns and outposts in non-contested zones. Such quests would clearly have to be done with a large group; a sort of world-raid.

Aside from their conflicts, each faction would have a capital and a number of cities, towns and villages. The borders of each faction would be clearly mark, and in general few (uncrossable mountains will surround them, or high walls with few gates etc). These entrances will be protected by a border watch (weaker guards, but certainly enough to take a single player), and every town will be constantly patrolled by the faction’s respawning guards. In addition, the factions would send patrols out into their countryside. These patrols would be heavier near the center of the faction’s power and space out more in the outskirts. The patrols would engage members of hostile factions, players of very low standing, players initiating aggression against other players, and mobs (see mobs below). In territory contested between two npc factions, rival patrols would be heavier and attack each other, perhaps even replacing mobs entirely in certain zones.

Players would have individual standing with the various factions, as has been discussed above. Standing could be gained, by completing quests for the faction, fighting on the battlegrounds, killing enemy npcs, and even killing enemy players. Standing could also be lost, by aiding enemy factions or assaulting players or npcs in the faction’s territory. There would be different levels of standing; for now, let’s call them blood feud, at war, disliked, neutral, liked, honored, champion of *faction name*. Standing of at war or lower will lead to the player being driven out of the faction’s holdings. If honored or champion, the player can unlock certain faction-specific skills and equipment, as well as other benefits such as better deals with faction merchants and craftsmen (especially important considering the cost of soulbinding) and discounts hiring soldiers to guard caravans in that faction’s territory. Player guilds will also have standing (reputation). In general, guild reputation will be affected by the members’ actions after joining; completing a quest, for example, will give the guild reputation as well as increasing the member’s standings. Additionally, large amounts of reputation could be earned by working as a group to further the faction’s cause (for example, by doing faction raids or entering battlegrounds as a team). Player standing before joining a guild generally won’t affect the guild’s reputation, unless they were very low (a faction won’t like you recruiting their enemies). If a guild’s faction reputation dropped sufficiently, any member of that guild would be attacked by faction npcs, even if the member’s personal standing was still high. This would include not only the city and town guards, but also the border watch and the random patrols. Finally, if a guild dropped to the lowest possible standing to one faction and a group of them enter that faction’s territories (they would have to defeat the border watch first of course), the nearest town or garrison would send a small army to hunt them down. Of course, if you are hostile to a faction you are unable to respawn in their cities, so they would be respawned outside the territory (and be hard-pressed to retrieve their loot). So essentially, if a guild insists on ganking players in faction controlled lands, or serves an enemy of a faction, they will lose access to those lands. Of course, if you need to purchase some goods from that faction (see economy below), you could use an unaffiliated alt to run into the territory. And of course your player enemies, if they learned who the alt was, could kill him and loot the cargo he was transporting.

Controlling an Npc City:

Territory control by player organizations would also be possible in my mmo. With a charter from an npc faction, players could construct a town within a faction’s territory. The town would be patrolled by faction guards and be under the factions control, but the guild that built it would have numerous benefits. Charters would be extremely expensive to buy, and cost resources per month to maintain. If a guild failed to maintain its charter, it would become available for other guilds to bid on (bid on the initial payment; the per-month cost would remain the same). Then, the guild who constructed the town would lose their rights there and it would pass to the highest bidder. Certain preconstucted towns would be similar; player guilds could purchase lordship of them and gain the benefits of ruling a town. Charters and lordships would also be given to guilds with extremely high reputation. For example, a fortress near a border with an enemy faction would be given to the guild with the most reputation earned in pvp. Unlike player standing, which is static, I imagine guild reputation as deteriorating at a constant rate, like in Guild Wars. Thus, if your guild stopped earning reputation, you would quickly lose your charter. This only applies to standing above the maximum level; using the levels above, only reputation beyond the champion level would be lost over time.

End Game:

Additionally, outside the areas controlled by factions, there would be a large expanse of unclaimed wilderness. Here a guild could establish a city without purchasing a charter. They would own such a city, giving them far more power than if they merely lorded over an npc town. They could set the laws, but would have to see them enforced (for example, no non-members allowed would be one possible law. Or a less hostile guild could only ban specific enemies). Building a village would be very expensive, and the guild would have to perform a number of steps. They would have to purchase building equipment from a large city. They would need to hire npc wagons to transport their materials (no player character could carry the large stacks of lumber and stone). They would need to defend the wagons on the way to the build site. They would need to hire npc builders to construct their city (the more they hire the more it costs, but the faster the city goes up). They would need to defend their builders from hostile guilds attempting to destroy their settlement. And once the city was constructed, the need to defend it would remain. They would also have to attract merchants, an innkeeper, bankers and so forth. Possible city structures would include a guild hall (the only essential building; technically you could build a “village” with just the hall), a respawn shrine (you could limit or even charge for usage), inns (to attract traveling caravans and for player rest, like in WOW), taverns (to attract merchants and villagers, and perhaps provide gambling mini-games), a barracks, a market place (for general merchants), halls for various classes (to attract class trainers), a smithy and other such specialty buildings for professionals/crafters (giving access to both profession training and high quality goods), shops for traders, banks, an auction hall, houses for villagers (to increase population, drawing merchant caravans and raising demand for trade goods), a manor, walls gates and guardhouses, and even a fortress. There could also be extremely expensive structures just for bragging rights, like a horse racetrack or cathedral.

Npcs like merchants, as I mentioned, would need to be attracted (as opposed to soldiers and such who are hired). For the most part, this means building the necessary shops and structures and ensuring their safety (providing sufficient soldiers to guard your settlement), but a city can be made more attractive with a taverns, monuments etc, and merchants/craftsmen would prefer a village with a large population. Though this might seem too confusing and complicated, it would only matter in the extreme late game. For example, if you build a marketplace a merchant is guaranteed to come. However a better merchant, with a wider selection of goods, would need to be attracted. Similarly, if you build a smithy you will get a smith who can repair gear and forge basic equipment. A master smith, on the other hand, would only move to a very large city. Remember though that any npc in your city can be killed by a rival guild, and any buildings could be burnt down. If you spend a fortune building a grand smithy and attracting a master smith, only to have the man assassinated by your rivals (or possibly an internal traitor) the day he arrives, you will be hard pressed to convince another to come to your town.

There would be no notion of controlling land the way there is in EVE (with system sovereignty) in my mmo. You could make whatever claims you wanted (by posting signs and such; signs are cheap), but your writ would only extend as far as your ability to enforce it. One of the problems with EVE territory control is that it is very hard to defend your space. It takes an active force of players constantly online to stop other people from harvesting resources you claim and attacking your bases. In my mmo, guilds could hire npcs. For example, if a guild built a city they would almost certainly have to hire soldiers to defend it and enforce their laws. Hiring an npc (soldiers, wagoneers, builders, miners etc.) would have an initial cost, then a cost per month (the initial would probably be equivalent to one month’s pay; more for short term employees like builders and wagoneers). Additionally, if the npc is killed in the line of duty, there will be a more substantial death pay (to his widow, for the role players). Thus, hiring soldiers to use as fodder would quickly become prohibitively expensive. Soldiers could be stationed at an area, like guarding your city gates or defending a valued npc citizen, ordered to protect a caravan, or could be set to patrol a path (if you intend to enforce a territorial claim beyond your walls). A soldier could even be hired to stay by a player character as a permanent bodyguard. Any hired npc would work a shift of up to 18 hours, but longer hours would decrease efficiency/damage (the peak would be at 8 hour days). And of course, the guild city would need to provide a barracks for off duty personnel. There would be many different kinds of soldiers. For example, you would have standard guys with swords, who would likely be set to attack any hostiles on sight, including non-guild players and mobs (mobs would certainly attack them if they were patrolling). Also there would be rangers, who could rapidly move through wilderness and ignore mobs. They’d be weak in combat, but they could report any enemy (or neutral) players on their patrol route while remaining stealthed. There would also be spell casters, healers, support, etc., though in order for non-standard soldiers to be available the necessary class structures would need to be built. One important note: a soldier could be set any patrol path. However, if that patrol path takes him into territory owned by an npc faction, the border guards would attack him even if the guild’s reputation is high. It would be considered by the faction as a foreign soldier entering underarms, and would result in an enormous reputation loss (note: this only applies to patrol type soldiers. Soldiers guarding a caravan or bodyguards would be permitted. Essentially, this is to stop player guilds from claiming territory owned by a faction).

How could guilds afford to pay for all this? A small amount could be gained by taxing the city’s population. The standard villagers that live in your guild city could be taxed to provide income, though of course higher taxes mean your city would be less attractive. Another way would be to invite non-guild members into their city. A city that is well located along major pathways or in a large questing area would be an ideal resting stop for solo players to refresh, purchase equipment and sell drops. The guild, as it owns the city, could levy a tax on such commerce. Additionally, there would be npc caravans (as there are in many games). If your city is a large, vibrate hub or along a major trade route, such caravans would stop at your inn, providing more income (you could tax their cargo as well as their stay, but tax too much and they might prefer to do business with a nearby rival). More commonly, a guild could operate a mine. Mines for gold, silver, iron, etc. would be abundant in the unclaimed territories. A guild could purchase equipment and hirer miners to harvest resources. Of course, mines would have to be defended too, from npc bandits and enemy guilds. Additionally, the resources would need to be transported to the guild’s city (or any city) before they could be sold. A caravan schedule would need to be set, wagons hired and npc soldiers or player guards tasked with defending the goods. In addition to mines, there could be farms, lumber mills and other resource gathering structures.

If you have ever played EVE, this whole section should sound very familiar. I really liked the idea of EVE, but I always felt that forcing players to mine, transport, patrol territory, research tech, construct ships/mods and so forth made many aspects of what could have been an incredible game seem even more like work than grinding in WOW. Also, by having npcs perform so many functions, guilds much smaller than the massive alliances of EVE could establish cities of their own and be involved in the endgame content.

Possible additions: Having soldiers be bribable might be interesting, but it might also cripple game play. Moral could be introduced as a factor, encouraging players to build taverns and the like to increase effectiveness, but if it actually affected loyalty it would lead to too many complications. However, if a caravan is captured by a rival guild, the wagoneers would switch allegiance. Also, there should be some mechanism in place to avoid rival guilds ninjaing their enemies while they are all offline. This could be like EVE’s reinforced mode. Finally, I suppose there is no reason why some servers couldn’t be pve (i.e. players can’t attack each other in faction lands without an official war. Or perhaps even players can never attack each other unless at war). I think that would detract from the game and would never play on such a server, but then some people don’t like risks.

Mobs:

A thing which often irks me about mmos is the basic mobs. Why are there hordes of savage animals roaming everywhere that attack me on sight? Why do the staving coyotes not attack the leopard right next to them, or vice versa? Why do the npcs not get harassed the way I do? And why is it that often I have to be close enough to literally bust it out and teabag a monster before it notices me? (For those of you who feel that is an exaggeration, obviously you have no notion of my teabaging range). In my mmo, mobs would act natural. Different species of mobs would attack each other or npc patrols if they came into range. Many avian mobs would be non-hostile, unless you approach their nest. Wolfs would hunt in packs and roam a large territory. Ant-like insectoids would stay in contact with their hive; attack a lone worker, and a few soldiers might hunt you down. Cats would remain stealthed against larger, more powerful, and more numerous creatures, preferring to prey on those alone, weak, or already wounded…get injured severely in a fight with a bear and you’ll need to be wary of a cougar jumping you while you try to heal. Additionally, mobs would have a much longer agro range. I’m not saying it would be as far as player sight, but unless you’re sneaking they should usually become aware of you before you are much nearer than the range of a longbow. The exact range would depend on the environment; in a forest, you can get much closer before being detected than you could on an open prairie. On the other hand, if you are attacking a goblin camp complete with watchtowers on a grassy hilltop, they will see you and sound the alarm as soon as you see them, if not before. How can I have both a longer agro range on mobs and allow them to attack one another? Wouldn’t that just make them constantly fighting? The solution is obvious; far fewer mobs. There will of course be concentrations, like the goblin camp or insect hive (often quests will require you to assault these), but for the most part stray creatures will be scattered far wider than they are in any mmo I’ve played. In reality, they are seldom more than an annoyance anyway; they will not be missed. Quests that require hunting certain numbers of certain mobs will not require as many as in other games, if they exist at all.

Another thing that irks me about mobs in most mmos is that they often have potent spells and abilities not available to players. For instance, in EVE most npc ships can target from over 450 kilometers. To have that sort of range, a player ship would need to have every slot filled by a targeting range enhancer mod, which would essentially be the worst conceivable build. In WOW, many enemy casters are able to polymorph a player character, and then damage him while he can do nothing (when a player casts polymorph, the spell breaks as soon as the target is damaged). Such imbalanced capabilities detract from gameplay; finding myself suddenly turned into a frog while enemies I could otherwise have easily overpowered beat me down from 75% health to none is not entertaining. This is another thing I like about GW. In Guild Wars, almost all the skills that mobs use are available to players. The exceptions are few and far between, like the “Giant’s Stomp” ability on several large monsters. In fact, the only way to acquire an elite skill in PVE is to kill a boss who uses it and capture the skill from him. My mmo would be like GW in this regard; the skills employed by monsters and npcs would be the same skills available to players.

I would, however, make an exception for bosses. One of the most entertaining things about WOW is that each boss has completely unique abilities and thus must be faced in a specific manner with a coordinated strategy. Some bosses, for example, can resurrect fallen allies, cast an aoe crowd control while they summon underlings, or send out massive damage bursts at certain health percentages. Such abilities of course would be massively over powered in the hands of players, but used by certain bosses at specific intervals they make each battle interesting and unique.

One final restriction on the mobs of my mmo. A monster should never ever respawn in agro range of a player. There are many things a player or team should worry about while questing. You must be careful not to agro too many enemies. You must be on the lookout for patrols. You should be wary of stealthed monsters suddenly appearing, or of enemy players stumbling upon you. One thing you should not be concerned about is a mob abruptly popping into existence and attacking you while you try to heal. There is nothing you could do to anticipate or avoid such a danger; therefore, it has no place in my game. In the same vein, no mob should ever have a respawn time of less than five minutes; even that should only be employed in the most populated areas. Often in WOW, I have battled mobs with respawns as low as one or two minutes. This makes it essentially impossible to clear an area unless you are vastly more powerful and able to kill everything in your first go.

Economy:

A real, functional economy is a great thing in a game. I’m not saying that it’s necessary to take this to the extent that EVE does, with every item being valued at whatever a player is willing to pay for it; indeed, this wouldn’t even be possible in any other game I know of. A real economy, you see, requires both an influx and an outflow of goods. The influx is simple; goods come into the game world as mob drops and quest rewards, and some can be made by players. Other than EVE, where items are destroyed at death, what game provides a sufficient outflow? WOW solves this problem by having many items bind-on-equip. Thus, once you use a weapon or armor, you can’t sell it to a player (you will need to vendor it when the time comes to upgrade). Guild Wars has customization, but with the low damage cap on all weapons there is no market for anything useful (in Guild Wars, each type of weapon has a max damage. A wand, for example, can do up to 11-22. Essentially everyone has a max damage weapon). The only balanced economy in GW is for luxury items like dyes that have no effect on gameplay, because they are the only items ever consumed. This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that GW has no auction house, so all sales are done be yelling in chat channels or through traders. In my mmo, it is possible that soulbinding will provide the outflow. However, if it’s expensive enough to discourage players from soulbinding all their equipment, it would mean that people would only bind their late game gear. Perhaps lower quality equipment shouldn’t cost as much to bind. Or perhaps I should have a bind-on-equip thing which stops players from trading gear they have used. However, as it could still drop on death (and presumably be usable by a looter), players could arrange for a friend to kill them so an item becomes sellable. I think the best option is have soulbinding be cheaper for lower quality gear. Thus, people will bind their equipment and it will be an economic outflow. There will still be the possibility of losing the contents of one’s bags on death; perhaps that is enough to keep player death a major game element. Alternatively, there could be a chance that any non-unique gear, even soulbound equipment, be destroyed on death (unique items would drop instead).

How the actual market should work is another question. As I said, EVE takes it too far. It’s essentially as though everything were put in the auction house. Despite what I said about GW’s economy, I do like the way in which luxury goods are sold. The GW trader system is different from anything else I’ve see. Essentially, for certain select items (dyes, runes, crafting materials and a few more) you can sell them to a specific trader (a dye trader, a rune trader…) instead of the general merchants. The price a trader offers is related to the rate at which the items are sold to the merchant vs. the rate at which players purchase them from the merchant, plus a margin for the trader. For example, rubies, a valuable crafting material, can currently be sold to the materials trader for 4.5k or bought from her for 5k. If many people start buying rubies, the price will go up. If no one buys them, the price will drop. Of course, in the chat channels there are people trying to buy or sell rubies directly to other players for 4.75k. In general, I prefer this system to the chaos of the auction house in WOW or the market in EVE. By having a value set by supply and demand and regulated by the npcs, you get the benefits of a real economy without have the market overrun by scammers and people undercutting each other by a copper. I would expand this system. In GW it’s only for very specific goods. In my mmo, it would be used for most things. In capital cities there would be a trader for unenchanted max damage weapons of each color (see items below), for unenchanted max armors, for max runes, max inscriptions, various crafting materials, building materials (lumber and stone for making cities), potions, trade goods, mining/farming hardware (used by endgame guilds) and so forth. Everything maxed or valuable would have a corresponding trader. The smaller cities would have a subset of these traders; towns would only have vendors. These are the traders I mentioned attracting to guild cities. There would still be general merchants (vendors), to sell basic equipment and buy sub-max gear and miscellaneous drops, and there would still be an auction house for the sale of things there was no trader for (like unique items) or for those desperate for a slightly better deal, but most commerce would be done through the traders.

There is one large difference between my traders and Guild Wars though; in GW, the prices are the same around the world. In my mmo, the prices would be set by region. Thus, it would be wholly possible that, say, max damage white swords were much cheaper in one faction’s capital than in another’s. Thus, a player could make profit transporting swords from the first locale to the second. He could do this my filling his bags with swords and running, but if he wanted to make the big bucks he would have to hire a cart or wagon. If the route he planned on taking necessitated going outside faction territory, he had better be prepared with friends or npc soldiers (sure he could go around, but that would take longer…someone else might get their first!). In fact, many players might attack a player with a wagon (or npc caravan) even on faction land, sacrificing the loss in standings for the wealth possibly being transported. The difference in price between regions would be even more apparent with trade goods. Trade goods are things which are not useful to players (at least not directly), like gold, coal, candles, grain, fish, pots, books and especially a number of region-specific goods. These goods cannot be carried by players; like lumber, stone and heavy equipment, they must be transported by wagon. As players don’t use these things, the “demand” is set by the villagers. For instance, a small inland farming community would have little demand for gold, but they would desire coal, candles and fish. On the other hand, the supply of grains and meats there would be massive; a fine place for one to cheaply load up his wagons on such goods. Alternatively in a city there would be high demand for any foodstuffs, as well as luxury items like gold. Of course, if another player just sold a wagon train of grains and hour before yours arrives, the price might not be as high as you would have liked. Maybe next time you’ll hire some (player) mercenaries to burn his wagons before he reaches the city. Such considerations are not only important to players who intend to make money as peddlers, but also to endgame guilds in their private cities. If the guild doesn’t own farms, the will need to find a source of food elsewhere. Otherwise, their population will leave (traders and craftsmen as well as villagers). Even with their own farms, they need to transport the food to the city. If the guild wants to attract master craftsmen and class trainers, they will first need to attract wealthy villagers, which means providing not only necessities like grain and candles but luxuries like gold and books.

Finally, there are the region specific goods. These are goods that are produced only in a single region, usually in territory controlled by a single faction. Such products are generally luxury goods; one region might produce perfumes, another porcelain, a third silk, and so forth. As there are only a few producing villages, the demand for such goods is very high…if you can afford price of buying and are willing to risk transporting them. The demand of course gets higher further away from the producing towns, so in order to maximize income, such goods would often be transported to a distant faction’s capital. As this would likely necessitate traveling in unclaimed territories, hiring strong guard would be recommended…

Items:

Game balance is very important in any mmo. Central to this is items. In games like WOW, for example, the players who have been playing the longest have ridiculous amounts of money and can thus afford to buy all the best weapons and armor. These orange and purple pieces are so potent that newer players can’t hope to compete: even after reaching level seventy, you’re not done with grinding if you want to be competitive in the pvp arenas. Guild Wars, on the other hand, is the most balanced game I know. As I said earlier, essentially everyone has all max equipment; by the time you reach level 20 (the highest level) you are sure to be able to afford it, and if not, any player can start a pvp only character who is automatically 20 and has access to free max armor and weapons. Though this does mean that pvp is only decided by player skill and team coordination (as opposed to wealth and play time), it also means that there is nothing left to strive for. Sure, the pvp is entertaining in itself, especially since it is so well balanced, but many mmo and rpg players crave a higher objective, an ultimate goal to aim for; if you want to fight the same war over and over, you might as well play an fps. In my game, part of this goal would be owning your own city, or even controlling a small empire. Player guilds would fight for resources or land, squabbles could arise over possession of trade routes, etc. For many players, however, the risk of being outside faction lands would be too high; in EVE, I think it’s less than a third of players who spend most of their time in zero-space. Besides, some people simply like grinding, and anyway a game ought to have some reward for more dedicated players (after all, they’ve paid the most). Thus, in my game there would be tiers of higher quality weapons and armor, each of which would have slightly better stats. Slightly is the key word; even the rarest unique would not be OP, and facing a similar character wielding an uncommon, player skill would still be by far the greater factor. Let’s use wands as an example. Say that common (white) wands are equivalent to the GW ones; 11-22 damage. Then we could have uncommon (green) wands with 13-22 base damage and the ability to hold one enchantment, rare (blue) wands with 15- 22 base damage and the capacity for two effects, and unique wands with 15-25 base damage and a predefined, unchangeable set of two or three bonuses (normal enchantments could be made, removed or replaced by a player with the appropriate skills or by an enchanting merchant). Perhaps there would be even more subdivision; the point is, a vastly rarer and thus more expensive weapon is only marginally more powerful than cheaper variants. I should note that this is like EVE; the power difference between mods of the highest and second-highest quality is seldom more than 1-3%, and often less. The price difference, set by the free market, is usually at least an order of magnitude.

Skills:

The skills and abilities available to players are one of the most important factors in any mmo. After all, most of a player’s time will be spent choosing and using his various powers. Skills should be numerous and cause a wide variety of effects. If a game has too few skills or they all do the same thing (like various amounts of damage for various amounts of mana and cast time/cooldown), the gameplay becomes stagnant and repetitive. This is another of the problems WOW has. Each class only has a dozen or so different abilities (not counting different levels of the same skill). Of these, only a few are useful. As a mage, basically all I do in combat is throw fireballs and firebust when it’s charged, plus a little crowd control. If presence of mind is available or I happen to clearcast I can use pyroblast, but otherwise it’s not worth it. Such gameplay quickly becomes tedious. Even with talent points, there are only a few good builds. If I see a mage in pvp, I can be 95% certain that I am facing one of the following: A frost based tackle, using frostbolt for damage, cold effects to cripple movement and cold snap to recharge; a three-minute spike with presence of mind, arcane power and pyroblast; an improved scorch based fire build, using the increased damage effect and burn spells; a support mage who uses slow, polymorph and counterspell to cripple his enemies for his allies to kill; or perhaps a shatter-pyroblast build that centers around criting. That’s essentially it.

Guild Wars, on the other hand, has a plethora of skills and near endless possible builds, each with its own merits and weaknesses. Let me briefly explain how skills in GW work. Guild Wars has 10 classes, each of which has 85 to 144 distinct skills (the classes that came with later expansions have fewer). Almost all the 1235 skills in the game cause widely different effects and are useful in different situations. And each character has two classes. Thus, you can have up to 286 skills at your disposal. While in town, you can freely pick and choose which you wish to place in your eight-slot skill bar. As soon as you leave town, however, you bar is locked and can’t be changed until you return. For the standard pvp events and guild battles, teams consist of eight players. Thus, as a group you have 64 skill slots. It is up to you to pick skills that complement each other and the other party members’, and that provide the necessary counter-measures to deal with whatever builds you will be facing in the tournaments. As a party, you must be prepared with resurrection spells, hex removal, healing, condition removal, enchantment stripping, a means of crippling the enemy flag runner, a means of defending your own runner and more. To have any chance in the main pvp arenas, a team must precisely coordinate player roles, spike timing, cast order and so forth, and there are thousands of effective team builds that have been used at various times. There are less formal arenas, where pick-up groups compete with little or no tactics, but the main battle grounds take a highly coordinated team. If I see an elementalist in Guild Wars, I have no idea what build he’s running until he starts casting. Possibilities include aoe tackle with deep freeze, locking us in place for his teammates to kill; aoe fire damage with heat or meteor shower, breaking our team if we stay too close; glyph of concentration and meteor shower, for the instant cast damage and knockdown; a gale based tackle; any of a number of lightning spike builds; earth wards for party support; flag running…those are only a few, and only pure elementalist builds. He could just as easily only be an elementalist for the class bonus (extra mana), and have his whole skill bar filled from his second profession.

Unlike elsewhere when I compared two games, here I am not searching for a middle ground. The Guild Wars skill system is vastly superior to WOW’s; there is nothing about WOW skills that I prefer or would want to include in my game. The flexibility of skills in Guild Wars allows for hundreds of different play styles even with just a single character, and as rerolling attributes (the GW equivalent of talents) is free and can be done anytime while changing skills in town, if you get bored of running a build you can quickly and easily switch, at no cost (though your equipment will likely be better suited to one attribute). My favorite build is still the melee fire nuke I devised while bored one day; essentially, the build relied on setting myself on fire, charging my enemies and exploding with high damage, high mana cost, instant cast, melee range aoe spells. Being a fragile spell caster, I almost invariably died, but I could usually unload all my spells first, bringing any enemy nearby to less than half health. Even better was when my roommate then cast vengeance on me (resurrect target ally at full health and mana. After 30 seconds, that ally dies). As soon as I went down, I popped back up and did it again. Usually that was sufficient to kill a crowd of 3-6 players (in the pug arenas of course; I could never get away with such a tactic in a real battle).

As I’ve said, with so many possibilities, coordinated team play is essential. In one of the less formal GW arenas, the Alliance Battles, players form teams of four. Then two more teams join you, for a twelve on twelve match (the largest battles in Guild Wars; my game would have bigger arenas, as well as the essentially uncapped world pvp). As you have no control over the formation of the other two parties, players generally don’t organize a build for their group of four; often they won’t even stick together during the battle. However, occasionally a practiced pvp guild will decide to AB and form a coordinated four man team with a consistent build. Having just one such team on your side is almost always enough to ensure victory. Several times I have seen a guild team in AB go against eight, nine or even all twelve of their enemies and win the skirmish; in GW, player skill and party coordination are more important than numbers. In my game, I would encourage similar creativity; skills would be numerous, builds would be flexible, and coordinated teamwork would paramount.