f know this sounds dark, but I would gladly do a special community service with a smile in exchange for this guy's destruction. It's not that a gimp like this has any relevance beyond his attempts to gain media attention, but it's simply that this kind of person is nothing but a blight on our image, knowing he rose to power above the rank of janitor. HOW ON EARTH do these scumbags get noticed?
1.) DO NOT attempt to make another WOW clone. People want something different, or they will stick with WOW. You cannot hope to steal WOW customers for any sustained length of time if you offer them little more than a chance to give up what they've invested in for a fresh start to a game that isn't fresh but familiar and deeply derivative of in it's core.
2.) Try and grab at least one thing from each of the better MMORPG's because they pretty much all had something or another new to add that set themselves apart by at least a litt.e
3.) Follow the original EverQuest as a primary source of inspiration. It was the best and ultimately fell because of outdated graphics, the selling out to instances movement, and the main dagger of them all was the uninspired EverQuest 2 which by it's own nature implies that it should be the next step forward, but in fact was technologically shinier at best, fubar'ed to the end of both itself and it's predecessor.
4.) Find a good franchise to build from. Dragonlance Online, Game of Thrones Online, Forgotten Realms Online, Krull Online, the Princess Bride Online, Beowulf Online..... Anything is better than some unknown start up franchise unless it somehow can show itself as something really strong and original a creation.
5.) Destroy basic quests, leaving only long and crazy quests like EQ1 had, some travel courrier quests, and quests to develop a path towards a certain profession or career such as knighthood and what not. Nobody wants to go kill so many rats or collect 40 snail balls and it's basically because nobody wants to feel like they are going to move a lot slower if they just go out and hunt what they want to.
6.) Really force each race and each class into it's unique possibilities, creating both strengths and weaknesses, encouraging more thought to battle.
7.) Get rid of Fast Travel, single out limited teleportation class options, stretch binding points and make the world a hostile and dangerous place to explore far beyond your starting point, making each exodus from one land to another a big thing and a potentially costly ordeal.
8.) Create a better use of voice and sound within the game's framework.
9.) Make it possible for a level 1 to kill a level 40 with the right experience, skill advantages and a little luck. Nobody should be given power beyond what their added experience and skill development can give them, minus the added powers and abilities that experience would justify an explanation for. You wouldn't grow a billion more hitpoints and the strength to kill a newb in one hit, though you might develop enough talent to pull off such a kill. Make the players skills define them.
10.) Have some advantage available for purchase and/or for longterm dedication if you must, but make them pale in comparison to things earned through a difficult quest or a perma-death threatened gamble that skill and talent as a player earned you such as an all or nothing gladiator pvp tournament held by gaming administrators.
11.) Create 2nd class race options with added advantages balanced by added expense, but the class is only unlocked as an option after leveling out other races. For example: Make a half-elf for those who maxed out a human and elf both, and give the half elf all of the best racial traits of each to make a stronger character, but give him a woeful faction hit in return making everything harder in their process.
12.) Create many dungeons, but ZERO instances.
13.) Create the old dungeon boss loot of a key to get you into an even greater dungeon, like in EQ with Kaesora's boss dropping an item you can trade alongside another item for the key allowing you to enter.
14.) Take away the ability to see text from any distance far away except maybe in town, and delete the whole numbers text of damage dealing. Make everything more of a mystery. Also take out any simple way of character classification other than looking and determining it yourself
15.) Develop ongoing world developement rather than static consistancy.
16.) Keep players in line or at least open to stating their alignment by inserting a system of religious factions offering some type of Jihad or wrath-of-god punishment for those who would take advantage of an unsportsmanlike method of annoying and bullying newbies unfairly in certain areas.
17.) Create an online society where players quest for gold by helping other players who pay them, in a way that works itself into an ongoing balance, tapped and prodded here and there a little by the serverside moderators so that it can work itself out in a fine balanced world.
18.) Greatly reduce weight and item capacity to a seemingly realistic amound of incumberance, making each kill less of looting moment unless there is true value in the loot itself.
19.) Create a creature class that allows a plyer to achieve a goal and leveling system that goes from bug to rat to dog to bea to monste to tough monster to mean as hell monster to boss monster to dragon and so on..... A fun alternate role to add chaos in the world.
20.) Try as hard as you possibly can to incorporate Demon's Souls and Dark Souls into every aspect of combat as well as anything else such glorious masterpieces like those two can have to offer.
Well I can say with a pretty good certainty that Demon's Souls and Dark Souls have been better than pretty much everything else combined in a long life of gaming. I love From Software with all my heart and hope they continue their path of gaming glory! These really are the perfect games.
shadgrindk's comments