What Jeff said- level 1-10 you have relatively safe missions that you can be retrieved from if you get knocked down, once you get past level 10 you need to travel further out to progress - and things get more dangerous out there…
Interesting… this “afterlife” concept.
Perhaps after death (which would be permanent), a character could live on but still be playable (maybe not indefinately?). For example… envision the gameplay dynamics if you could come back and terrorize the living as a zombie/ghost/whatever. You’d have some sort of setback as a result of being dead… (only come out after dark? only in certain places such as your character’s home/shop from life? only within a certain distance of the grave? etc…) Various stat/speed penalties… Then say all your 133T stuff gets buried with you, and people can rob the grave for it, but then if you like you get to haunt them til they put it back.
Gives the living players motive to venture into graveyards and stir up trouble…
Gives the dead characters motive to have fun tormenting the living…
Keeps the cool 133T items around without instantly handing them to over-privileged lowbies…
If you raid a 133T item from a grave, you better be strong enough to keep it if its dead owner comes looking for it!
If the owner does come looking X number of times and fails to take it… “ownership” transfers?
A friend of mine worked on an UO mod that also had an afterlife where people floated around as ghosts and when they talked, only “ooooohhh” came out.
The problem with such afterlifes is that it will become boring for the players.
Unless the afterlife is only of short duration or they can adventure on in the afterlife.
Maybe make the afterlife a portal to the superduper hard areas. When a player dies they take their ghost-‘1337’ items with them and then are allowed a choice:
new character or to enter the ‘planes’, a huge set of superduper hard levels where you can only ‘die’ once.
Once you pass them, you are returned to the world, only no items and changed.
Random set of 2 changes, one positive, one negative… i.e. the infamous missing right hand but a jedi master.
Overkill, your idea sounds a bit like Wizard’s twilight in Ars Magica, for any Pen and paper fans…
I think one conclusion we are coming to is that if you you have a limited lifespan the low level play needs to be really fun. This is probably a good way to bring new players in anyways…
I don’t know how Guild Wars operates this, but I heard they have tried to get around the level grind somewhat by allowing people to create a character at any level. Not really sure how that mechanic works out though.
I play(ed) GW and it is a little missleading.
You can build a lvl 20 from scratch, but they only work in PvP arenas.
GW is only little level grind because you only have 20 levels (good) but you still have farming. Not a bad thing because the devs wanted it that way.
If you die you lie on the floor until someone rezzes you or your entire party dies. No matter what you get a 15% penalty everytime you die. (iirc been a while)
If the entire party dies they respawn at the areas spawn points (tempels)
If you are really are trying to avoid the level grind, don’t give people reasons to level grind.
I have tried out a few games in the last few days. last and most fun was a nethack kinda iso mmorpg game: www.daimonin.net
Nothing to great graphics wise but still kinda fun. I like their skill progression, even if it can be exploited.
Yet they offer nothing else but level grinding as its only means of ‘progression’.
I’d love to help out in your game but a) have something of my own (will post info soon) and b) no real time.
Though if you are looking for the devils advocate or suggestion person, I’m always game.
Devils Advocation is one of my main reasons for reading and posting in these forums. ;D If I do all my design work in a vaccume I would find that I have a game that I absolutely love, but for some strange reason not everyone in the world has my same opinions. I’m trying to correct that with a side-project in brain manipulation, but in the mean time I like soliciting the views of others. 
There are a few pen+paper RPGs that allowed characters to start off with various levels of skill already by generating background events. But doing so always came at a risk. For example, Twilight 2000 was a military-based game where you play members of NATO forces in the European theater when the cold war heats up. All hell is breaking loose, the war has gone nuclear, command strucutre has broken down and you find youselves cut off far behind enemy lines. You and your team need to survive and return across a hostile and devestated Europe to friendly territory. During character generation you can build a character with a lot of background experience, giving you a higher rank, more skills, etc. The downside was that you could find yourself with injuries, accumulated radiation, etc. So it was taking a chance to do so. Other games have had similar processes for creating higher starting characters by giving the player a pool of points to “spend” on categories like abilities, skills and resources ( money & equipment ). If you wanted high starting abilities you would find youself with fewer points to spend on initial skills, for example.
Major play-balance considerations in each type method, but as long as all players have the same options to them and there is little random effect ( die rolls ) that people can wine aboue, then it shouldn’t be too bad. And such a process will give players a sense that their starting character comes from “somewhere” already and is not just fresh meat.
Points-based character creation is easy and fair, especially when combined with virtues and vices- a side effect of which is that you end up creating bizarre and freakish characters as you pick more flaws, although these maybe work best in pen & paper as they give leverage to the GM. You would need quite a sharp game system to take advantage of them, though…
Problem is that people do not make characters but munchkins.
I’ve played & dmed on my share of NWN Roleplaying servers and you would be amazed to what lengths people go to justify their munchkins.
Planeshift has a similar system but they tell you what what costs and you can see the results before you start.
What might work would be a storybook kinda think where each character runs through their own story.
IIRC there were some D&D novels that gave you choices what to do next and then you had to jump to a certain page.
Something like that.
And in the end, dump them with thier stats.
Also make the story a little random. Players will quickly know what effects what.
f.i. different paths :
player gets the choice of a (combat) or b (outsmart) an enemy.
first time they choose combat them they roll a 20 and beat the enemy. second time they roll 5 and loose. Call it fate.
But even if they lose, give them something for it.
Make the story long enough so that people won’t want to repeat it just to tweak their scores.
Overkill, I’m intrigued by the phrase “munchkin” as slang in this case. Do you mean minimizing certain features for the sake of maximizing others, or something else? If that is what you meant, I’m already working on a balancing method. Basically, a maximum number of “negative points” that each character can acquire is the easiest solution. If you are familliar with the Microprose game Master of Orion II, it allowed you to customize your race in this way. Each player had a number of starting points, and all attributes ( combat ability, research generation, production, growth, etc ) were initially neutral ( +/- 0 ). You could spend the points to buy bonuses in any area and if you wanted you could take negatives in other areas for more points. But you could only take a maximum of about 10% of your starting points as additional negatives.
RE your mention of using a background story to generate the player’s starting values, that’s what I was hitting at in reply #8 to this thread. Sort of a pick-your-way flow chart with very basic story elements. I hope to avoid a menu-like list of bonuses and penalties for the player to choose from. I would rather have a “mini-game” with some variation in the choices presented to the player ( to avoid the situation of someone determining the “best” choices and everyone producing clones ). Of course, the variations would have to be fairly minor ( choice between getting a bonus in one skill or another ) so people don’t feel cheated, but they should still be enogh to keep characters uniquie.
And this all gets back to the concept of killing off the characters if appropriate. By getting enough investment up front on the character, and making the new charactes something more than just a generic blank slate waiting to enter the level grinding machine, I would hope that the character is “worth” something right from the beginning, successes really mean something more than a level change, and death means more than just a respawn. But in the event of such a death, a new, equally unique, interresting, and not “noob” character is just a short creation away.
Yes Munchkin = min/maxing.
Yes MoO2 was one of my favorites. Now GalCiv2. But I min/maxed my races as well. At one point I had a killer setup and strategy that helped me beat the game on its hardest level.
This is why I was saying that a virtues/flaws system works better in pen and paper- I don’t think it’s enough to give a stat difference alone, which is usually the way it works in computer games. Taking the flaw “ugliness” may give you -10 speechcraft but most people don’t care very much about that. If, however, it made your character really ugly to look at people would think twice about it. I’m not suggesting that is actually feasible, but you need something like that for your flaws and virtues to be meaningful.
System Shock 2 had quite a good story-based character generation, I seem to recall, as have the last couple of Elder Scrolls games.
Yep, been there, seen that.
NWN players with 8 int, wis and charisma and talking like professors.
If you have those kinda stats it is very important that they be used ingame.
Hi
Hows about an adaptive system based on the way you play. A really simple example is strength v.s. intellegence. If you character wanders round with a big sword for 80% of their gameplay time, it maybe that the strength of that character goes up, whilst some of their other stats go down. Inversly, someone who spends lots of time casting spells, may have thier int go up and thier strength down, someone who mixes the two would be the jack of all trades, master of none type person.
The player may create some starting statistics, but the way they play thier character after that defines they way they develop.
Endolf
@endolf:
If it were my game I’d definetly do something like that.
IMHO skill and stat progression based on the players actions is among the best systems.
Hi
It can be taken further into the skills as well. Skills can be either taught or learned through observation. I can go to town and find the local mage school and learn the basics of say fireball. I can then go off and start casting it. At first, i’m not that good, sometimes it may fizzle, sometimes it may do little or no damage. As I practice it, I slowly improve. One day, I get myself into a high skill group, and there is someone there who is casting it 100% of the time doing tons of damage, just by being near that person, I am observing what they are doing, and whilst I may be performing other things, because I already know the basics, and I have high intellegence, I am able to increase my own skill in the spell.
This all happens under the covers with no feedback to the user, but next time I cast it, I find I kill my foe quicker.
I’ve discussed this next bit with kev before, and I still think it’s a good idea. What I hate about some games is the level/stat grind. Remove the numbers, and it’s about the game experience.
I’m now finding my foe are very easy to kill, I can either sit there clicking the same buttons over and over, and over and over, or I can go off and find a new challenge. By entering in to the unknown (With no numbers, I can’t look online to find out what I should be killing at level 20) the excitement has returned, it becomes and adventure again. Death becomes a risk, and that introduces excitement.
You still have to get the balance right, if death means nothing, then the risk has gone, if death means you loose everything, no-one will risk it.
Maybe death means your char is unusable for an hour, time to go work on one of those alts, maybe time for the alchemist to prep some more potions. Death still has a meaning, but it’s not hours and hours of game advancement lost. You also probably didn’t improve many of your abilities whilst your body was being flug about by that troll
Endolf
Two models in pnp RPGs that I am reviewing are similar to that. In both models, stats or abilities are pretty much fixed after creation. They can be altered in-game , but such a change is usually from an exceptional event. Both avoid the use of “levels” and general advancement of everything ( even unused skills ). Neither method uses “levels” for the player. Each uses a system of the player accumulating experience in-game and may allow some ( slower ) progression even while logged out ( to keep them coming back ).
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One model has the player selecting at the beginning of the game which skills ( perhaps 1 to 3 ) they would like to focus their training in. As they earn experience during the game, it is divided evenly among those skills. If you focus on just one skill at a time you will learn it more quickly and allow specilization. Training in more than one will allow you to progress as a more well-rounded character. Positive and negative modifications to the point allocation will exist based on some more detailed mechanics and decisions. When a skill gains enough points to advance one rank you are notified and can either select another skill to train or let the others accumulate points faster.
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The second model is almost completely based on advancement thru use. Each time you use a skill, successfully or otherwise, you gain some experience with it. After enough experience, your skill increases in rank. You can also select a “Training” activity which allows you to train in any one skill of your choice. The points accumulate slower than actual “real” use, but this will allow players to develop some skill in areas they cannot otherwise use and also allows for some off-line training to take place. There will be a fairly low maximum rank you can attain from training a skill in this way to prevent a player from selecting “pistol combat” to train, going off-line for a week and coming back at rank 20. This will force players to actual DO something in areas they want to improve.
In the event of non-permanent death, all experience accumulated toward the new ranks will disapear. Additionally, which ever method I select I do not believe I will show the player how many points they have accumulated. There will be some degree of feedback but not explicit points. I like to try to seperate the numeric aspects from the game interface enough to help with immersion and reduce playing “by the numbers”.
I once considered the idea of a Call of Cthulhu / Lovecraft style MMORPG. I didnt like the run around, slay monsters and
gain xp, short: leveling, of existent games. It would be rather an investigate style gameplay. Players solve
riddles, discover secrets, etc. They have to battle monstes, but they dont give xp, they are just threads. Running around
and killing is no use. You only get xp for Quest solving. And Quests would need different skills. You cant just go around alone.
All in all, gameplay should be more like story playing. Follow an interesting plot, like reading a book. No big leveling, no special items, no hundred levels of xp, no dozens of special skills and spells and such. The game fun is the experience of the story, your brain being your best skill.
If you die, you create another char. If you have some levels and skills, items and money, maybe you can keep some and lose some, so you dont start over at 0 but have a penalty. All in all, there shouldnt be too much difference between a newbie and a pro. No level 100 and 4 times the damage or so. Just ingame experience and knowledge, a little more insight in the great plot maybe. But a pistol is a pistol and always does the same damage. Bullets dont go stronger when you level up. Accuracy might increase a little, but not so much that you would need to go level 20 to be able to survive an area.
Basically, its “play a novel” gameplay. You have chars, a story, hints, riddles, etc. The drawback is, you dont get much. You get no great number as level, no superspecialunique items. Well, ok, there are special items, but they dont make so much of a difference. When you play a game for the experience and the story, and not to get gold, xp or items, then it might be an idea for you.
All in all, get the ROLE PLAYING into MMORPG, while most of them are hack and slay based. People talk outgame, the bright paladin just doesnt behave like one, there is no role playing atmosphere. People discuss sports results or school homework, while playing dwarves or elves. They run around and slay monsters to get xp to get levels to get some skills or better stats just to kill stronger monsters. I dont like it.
Out of personal preference I would stay away from alowing people to choose stuff out of the box.
Sure a basic set of skills that have little or nothing to do with their later professions and stats are ok.
But I would not yet let them choose what they want to play. i.e. fighter, wizzard, etc.
The game I talked about in an earlier post does the same and I find it very nice out of the simple reason that I can do what I want.
Even if my stats have fighter written on them I can still do magic, though poorly.
Also you can let people change who they are midgame. Say a fighter decides to focus more on magic. In some game systems it would not be possible or limited.
If you find a great axe you could reskill to the axe.
design pitch:
Using your ‘learning by dooing’ and ‘training one skill offsets the others’, how about a finite amount of skill points a character can have per level.
Say you have 10 pts at lvl 1. You have no skills what so ever so you learn swordsmanship for 4 pts, armor for 3 pts, shields for 2 pts.
You have 1 pt left you can use for another skill, but here is the deal. You could learn more, but it will cost you other points.
So learning 2 pts alchemy will reduce your swordmanship by 1 (oldest trained skill).
For each sucessive level you can give out extra points to the max.
i.e. lvl 2 = 10 + 3 = 13
lvl 3 = 13 + 3 = 16
has anyone taken into account separation? I mean if I play a game with some buddies and somone dies the game doesn’t get more boring for the buddy that dies but also for the rest of the group.
I’d say agreed but only if the game was designed for that purpose, like GuildWars.
Otherwise, tough cookies. 