As the OP said, it would probably be best to start separate threads for the discussion of each problem.  Each reply in here could be used to link to the problem discussion threads.  In fact each user should only post once and can edit each time to add new links to the discussions they have started.  They can add notes or ask for input under each problem heading and link.  This would be nice because you could browse the issues of concern for each user and see what ideas you want to discuss.  New threads could link back to this one and echo the idea of this thread in that we are looking for solutions and not tear-downs to say it can't be done.   The OP could edit the opening post to reflect some of these instructions and could periodically go through the user post links and copy/paste them into a CATEGORICAL list in an edit of the opening post.  In this way we would have a really useful index of design problems and solutions sorted by category and also attached to the user who proposed the problem and we could potentially get some really good discussion going that would be easier to sort through than the random names most threads get that usually just end up being some idea for a 'really cool mmo set in the such-and-such universe' which would be so awesome.  No, instead we could link right to real discussions of problems and solutions under straightforward headings.

If the OP agrees and would like to move the gist of the above text to the opening post, I will replace it with an edit that will instead list some links to some of my problem discussion threads. The other two who have posted could start new threads and paste their discussion there and then replace their posts here with links to the discussion.

Just a suggestion.

It is interesting what discussion is sparked when perhaps both parties misunderstood (for lack of clarification on my part) the original quote.  I am all for removing arbitrary mechanics and promoting interaction and communication, but the system I mentioned would not do that at all in the way most games have approached it.  I am not talking about a chat channel or anything like that either.  I actually miss the days when you could only chat to the people nearby and there were hardly any alternatives, but now, as was mentioned, people will use any system they want.  But that is all a different subject.  I was talking about systems that create organization and socialization between players that will foster communication.  Right now games are played very much in isolation as content is consumed either individual or in huge groups, but it is always the same content, and half the time it is instanced so it really is just you and your guildmates on voice chat playing a smaller multiplayer game together.  They set a time, log in, ignore everyone except those they have on the headset, and rush to the dungeon and start grinding the mobs.  Then they go to their websites, take care of business, drops get distributed, items are sold on the impersonal global auction, gold is divvied up and then it is on to the next new (same) thing.

The design I mentioned and the systems that support it create a dynamic world where you have to interact with everyone and you do just go and take the actions that are available to you and they actually effect other people.  You will have to talk to the people who know that land and its customs, you will have to hash out trade agreements, laws will have to be debated and cases argued.  Friends (or enemies) will be made on the road and you can not afford to ignore just anyone that passes by because everyone's actions carry weight.

In the end the idea is to have an imaginary world inhabited by real people interacting in ever changing and combining ways (both competitive and cooperative) to reach goals they themselves have set.  This is in direct opposition to creating a game that a lot of people play at the same time, more often than not alone or in small groups that have little effect on each other or the game world, and thus very few reasons to interact in any diverse ways.

Thank you for the detailed reply.  Just to clarify a few points since I was trying to be brief:

Point one mostly deals with having a decent number of variables that combine to create emergent complexity.  When I said gravity I am not talking about HL2 physics or anything (though that would be nice) but down is down, you can jump, fall, etc.  A few projectile systems might be based on some simple trajectory/thrust/weight ratios and building designs won't implement well if not structurally sound.   None of this has to be a complex gravity engine, but rather cleverly implemented rules and systems that work together to simulate an effect in some basic areas.

Character improvement in skills would be entirely possible to a great extent (I should have specified).  What this design has that is a vast departure from your standard MMORPG is no huge advancement in uber god-like character power, especially in the traditional areas of strength and hit points.

Interaction with the community is an integral part of the design and the major focus.  The group systems allow for you to interact with the community in many different ways between both individuals and groups.  It could be anything from interacting with the local government to a transaction with a local merchant shop, or as a hired sword for a party setting out for uncharted territory.

Creature interaction would go far beyond the basics and would be done for a reason, not just to grind up levels.  This could include extermination from a problem area (they don't just respawn but others could migrate in), harvesting resources that make sense (why do rats have gold in their pockets?), attracting animals for capture, tracking, observing, domestication, breeding, riding, etc.

Although good AI would be nice, what I was talking about there were ways for players to manage their resources, even NPCs with relatively little AI.  The point is that the design is not just for your traditional character advancing MMORPG where all you have to worry about is your inventory, but has other things to do while you interact with the world such as managing political relations, setting up supply shipments, operating a mining or farming industry, positioning your army strategically, and so forth.

The world needs to be big for several reasons.  For long distance trade to be meaningful the space separating goods from markets must be significant.  It also allows different developments to take place in relative isolation.  Real factors will cause like-minded individuals to concentrate themselves in certain areas, but there will always be frontiers, low population areas, political units that have had no in-game interaction until they expand to a certain extent.  I have no problem with some or all randomly generated terrain as long as it fits the need to create enough variety as the game requires.  Terrain and resources should not be uniformly distributed but found in different and unique combinations in many areas.

As for change, I am afraid I can not back away from this point.  It is the core of the design.  It is what makes the world alive.  It is what would make anyone want to be a part of the game world.  Now I am not saying that things will change over night.   Even a casual player will be able to see change coming and take part in preventing it if that is what they desire.  The real changes come through player interaction and so it is up to players to preserve what they value in any way that they can.  That is a compelling goal in a game, and even when it fails the reality of the investment in an idea can continue to drive further interactions.  In most games what do you build?  You spend hours and hours grinding a character up the levels and collecting all sorts of uber stuff.  If you were to lose that in such a game, of course you would probably quit.  The means to get there was boring and mindless.  The end was the goal and the focus.  You would have to do almost exactly the same thing to get there again and that is frustrating.

But what about a game where you set your own goals and interacted with other real people to achieve them and then fought to defend what you had built, and lost?   They took away your stuff, they burned your city to the ground.  Can they take away your experience in working with those people and fighting with those comrades?  Can they stop you from forming the resistance and continuing with hit and run tactics and sabotage.  Can they stop you from scraping together what you can to set off to a new land to start again and build something even better.  What about joining with their enemies when the opportunity comes to bring about their ultimate downfall?  You see it is about playing, not winning, not getting there.  It is the journey and the changes each player brings about in some small way with every action.  The change IS the game.  I have run enough tests to know that it works even on the most basic level. 

Sure there are design challenges, but why shouldn't there be?  Such a vision can be implemented even in a very basic way and still reach the desired effect.  I have run everything from a forum theoretical simulation to a 30 player board game on this design principle.  I have seen browser based games that had the dynamic potential I am talking about.  The real problem is just what this thread is about, starting from scratch.  A big MMO company isn't going to do that.  Even a community developed browser game will run into trouble getting everyone on board with such a thing.  I don't really mind people pointing out what would be hard to implement or code.  It just helps one generate ideas.  The only really hard part to wrap ones head around is what comes up time and time again, and what doesn't mesh with what we have come to expect from every RPG from DnD to singleplayer to multiplayer RPGs, is the proposed lack of focus on me and my character and whether I am advancing and feeling like the hero and the center of things.  That was fine with 5 friends around a table top rolling dice.  The technology that allows us to all share a persistent virtual world could offer so much more.

When UO first came out, before we even played it, my siblings and I were completely enamored of the possibilities we thought that this brave new world of online gaming would offer.  We came up with all these ideas on what our characters would be and do.  Once we finally got the game we dove right in with our plans.  Slowly we realized it didn't offer as much freedom as we had thought.  The main thing to do was level up and kill stuff (and UO had way more to do than that and MUCH more than most games that followed).  From then on I have always been evolving a concept for a game played online by a large number of people that really doesn't fit into the same category of what MMORPGs have become.

My idea is as follows: 

• You have a world that is designed with all sorts of natural interactions.  Weather, climate, terrain, gravity, resource replenishment rates.  Creature habitats, prey, behavior, needs, population density, birth rates.

• You have players that can interact with this world and each other.  They have an intuitive user interface to do so.  They can improve their character to a degree (but not hugely and that is not the focus).  They can interact with the materials, creatures, terrain, etc. that they find in the world to bring about real changes.

• You have a few systems whereby players can manage their resources, be those materials, NPC human resources or PC human resources.  They need to be able to communicate, sort things, categorize things, set up commands, etc.  This is all highly customizable and can be utilized to the extent the player wishes.  Some never use such systems.

• You have another system that allows players to organize themselves into groups.  This is very fluid and open ended.  It can be a temporary hunting party, a tribe, a kingdom, an empire, a merchant guild, a military unit, a secret society.  You can belong to any number of groups.  Group members define what it means to be in the group, what responsibilities, privileges, etc. are attached, how people are admitted, expelled, how decisions are made, etc.

The world is big.  There are a lot of players.  The interactions between players and this dynamic virtual world lead to endless emergent complex immersive and INTERESTING outcomes.  (Did I use too many buzz words?)  No grinding for power levels of uber god-like proportions.  No hoping for a drop of some super charged piece of phat loot.  No repetitive dungeons with a boss and mob that everyone fights over and over.  No NPCs giving delivery quests.  Players set their own goals.  They work to accomplish what they can within the constantly changing setting.  They align with those that have similar goals and can help make theirs possible.  Remember, interactions can be come about through both cooperative and competitive gameplay. 

I really like how ghstwolf mentioned play generated content which I took to mean content generated though the actual playing of the game as opposed to the nightmare of player-created content that comes with all kinds of problems stemming from quality control issues and game continuity.  In fact it seems like ghstwolf and I have some similar core beliefs for the genre if I am reading correctly.

But then it comes down to the debate that has been going on after ghstwolf mentioned collective story telling.  Can individuals enjoy themselves in a setting that can be affected (positively and negatively) by others?  I have heard this time and time again.  Can we know without testing it?  Is it promising enough to be worth a try?  I have done some small tests of my own and some kids were in tears from the losses inflicted upon them by other players, but I don't think it was because there were more of them ganging up on loners (the mechanics weren't really affected by that) or because they were maxed level players picking on noobs (it was a fairly even playing field).  From all I could tell it was because they were emotionally invested in their goals (not their stuff) and so once they regained composure they jumped back in and continued playing because they ENJOYED playing the game despite the setback and continued to work towards their goal.

So lets start from scratch.

I have been fascinated with the possibilities of virtual worlds since UO in 1998 and have been evolving a concept ever since (so 12 years I guess).  I have full confidence that the basis of my concept will work but low tech testing is what I need to refine things.  I don't just have an idea for a cool story or combination of mechanics for your run-of-the-mill MMORPG but rather a design principle that could be applied to a variety of worlds and settings.  It is a design that has nothing to do with grinding levels, getting phat loot, and doing repetitive quests.  It is about a dynamic world with player set goals and a complexity of variables that result in emergent and immersive outcomes.  This approach has the power to change the genre or really create a new genre that would reach a much wider audience.

I have done various simulations and tests on paper, in spreadsheets, even in a board game version that 30 players participate in simultaneously.  I have done this last test for two years running where the participants were involved in the 'dynamic virtual world' of the board game for several hours a week over a period of 5 months.  The results were promising.

I have thousands of files documenting aspects of the design from broad concepts to specific mechanics, controls, screens, etc.  I have not yet put them into a single document although I know what would go into it.  The reason being that I don't need a document for a game to be created from start to finish at this point.  I need a platform for further testing.  Browser based is probably the way I will go if I can ever find the time and people with the basic programming skills or if I learn the basics myself.

Once the concepts have been tested and proven . . . . .

The possibilities are endless.

Pinkdaisy has returned!  Based on our conversations about economies I for sure want to check it out.  BTW what was the browser based game your friend put out?

Was the OP leaning more toward the question of:

"Should we get rid of levels?"

     OR

"If we got rid of levels, how might that work?"

I took it at the later and so was thinking along the lines of alternate paths of progression.  As usual I advocated a dynamic, player driven world where players set their own goals.  Personally I would have some basic skills that do progress in an undisplayed level.  These would be far from the focus and not have massive effects.  Players would feel like they were progressing as they accomplished goals that they find fulfilling.  Some would have grand goals, and others would rather be told what they should do and then how they ranked because of it (as in the current systems).

For example: 

(remember none of these are designed content, but player set tasks which they set for themselves or are given by other players)

• Establishing a successful colony on an unexplored frontier.
• Gaining a true reputation as a military strategist.
• Rising in the ranks of a military organization for accomplishing missions.
• Becoming so familiar with a particularly dangerous part of the land that you are the go-to guide for any activities there.
• Being so socially influential that you are in-the-know as pertaining to all goings on in a certain area.
• Attaining a certain share of an economic market through shrewd business planning.
• Establishing a school of magic that produces loyal and responsible mages that work to better your area of the world.
• Working to create such chaos in a region that political turmoil and factionalism run rampant, thus paving the way for the revolution!

Since they are all player-established goals, rewarded not by any game mechanic, but by the simple perception of having accomplished them, or to be progressing in a perceived successful fashion, you can see that the possibilities are truly unlimited.

Originally posted by SwampRob 

This would most definitely not work.    You might as well say 'let students go to school where there is all the material they need to learn and they can teach themselves'.     It would be about as effective.      If this plan worked, games would be doing it.     No true MMO is going to work if players start at maximum powers/abilities.

Actually school in that form could be quite effective for those that really want to learn and most people learn most of what they really know and retain on their own. I know I didn't learn much in high school or at university besides what I researched myself. As if schools actually taught anything. But the flawed analogy is beside the point.

The outstanding part of this comment is the mention of a 'true MMO' and I would be most interested to know exactly what that is.

Character progression can be acheived in MANY more ways than arbitrary gaining of levels, stats, and items. If you don't believe that then this cannot be a very useful discussion to participate in.

As for why we haven't seen MMOs like this yet, it is because they are much harder to design and require the devs to have much less control. If done correctly they could be much more successful as well, and appeal to a wider audience in fact, than the current run of cookie-cutter games (which may be the definition of 'true MMO' as refered to above).

What would we do without levels or other artificial forms of advancement?

Easy:  For once let the interactions of players in a dynamic world create the content and let players set their own goals for accomplishment and then find the means to reach those goals. 

This would provide for a much more satisfying sense of accomplishment for most players, and for those that enjoy artificial rankings, those could still be a part of player created organizations and be awarded according to whatever criteria they deem fitting.

A big part of the problem is that people just throw out these words and assume the reader will have the same definition as they do. Of course this is rarely the case so they should take the time to clarify and qualify their statements, but few do, and even if they did, even fewer would take the time to carefully read and understand what was said.       tldr

Would most agree that with enough time any player of most MMORPGs can attain the level and items/gold they end up paying for from leveling services and gold farmers?

So if there is any gain over time then there will always be something to pay for beyond subscription fees.  If items and gold can't be traded, but characters gain skill and xp over time, then people will pay to save that time if the value of that time is worth more than the money required to make the payment.

Thus, all the suggestions of what can and can't be traded have no real effect if there is anything to be gained over time invested acquiring skills, xp, levels, gold, items, etc.

So at the root of the problem is the grind, and some people want to save time.  If there is no gain over time (and thus no time investment) then there is nothing to pay for, but you just have an FPS.

Therefore, I concede that beyond removing all time-based progression, this type of spending can not be stopped.  However, the title of the thread refers to stopping this activity from 'ruining your game' and that is something different altogether.

Many of the suggestions given to this point if taken with an entire design may to some degree reduce the negative impact of seller actions on the game, but I propose that a drastic change in the progression model be considered, not to the point of complete removal, as mentioned above, but to a point where there is no grind per say, and focus on actually playing the game is enjoyable, not as a means to an end, but as the end in and of itself.

In other words the entire focus of the genre would have to be shifted.  At this point the focus has become so much about gaining levels, skills, items, or whatever toward some idea of end game, or maxing out, or otherwise arriving at some point, and everything in between, no matter how fun or awesome the first 20 times, becomes tedious.  It is hard for many to image an MMORPG not based on this progression model.  Right now you grind mobs to get a more powerful character and more powerful stuff so that you can grind more powerful mobs to get more powerful stuff, and on and on again and again.

Some people want to skip this and go right to the end where they can do who-knows-what but it has got to be better than the repetitive content of most games.  If some payment to some seller can save them this unwanted experience, they will pay it, especially because once their character is leveled or they receive the gold or items there is absolutely no possible loss to them.  Would some of them pay for that gold if they could be robbed on the way back into town?  The answer is, yes, some still will, so again we haven't solved the 'problem.' but might have reduced it. It is a step in the right direction in my opinion.

However, the other thing we have to ask is how does the selling of gold 'ruin the game' for the rest of us. Is it because they get things faster than us? Is it simply not fair? If the former, there are always people ahead of us in the game, perhaps those that started at the same time but have more free-time to invest. If it is because it isn't fair, then are we admitting that the grind of the game is not fun, and that they shouldn't be able to skip it if we 'have to' experience it.

Let's think about that, and ask yourself what they would be missing if playing the game was the point and not playing through the game. If having a maxed character wasn't the goal, if the content of the game were not accessed through progressive levels or getting awesome stuff with massive amounts of gold, but rather through interaction with players and a dynamic game world, then, would we then finally stop the gold sellers? NO. But would we care? If they pay to get something that is not secure and is not the focus of the game, what do we care? If they pay to skip content that is the point of the game, what does it matter to us? It doesn't. In the end, the problem is solved not by stopping it, but by creating a design where it doesn't matter to us if it occurs, because the game itself, for once and finally, becomes fun.

(sorry it is so long, but it helps sum it all up for me)

Thanks to all for participating.

I wasn't quite sure on plasuma's post tho.  The progression model being driven at by the questions is supposed to remove arbitrary mechanics like grinding for loot and 100% secure inventory and storage (and even character), although they are gradually graded to see what effect different degrees of insecurity would have on spending.

In the end I realize this would be better as a branching survey where if you don't or won't spend you are led to questions to determine the reasons and then ask more questions based on those, and if you do spend it would lead to questions that might determine not only what factors would make it not worth it to spend and to what degree, but also what factors would lead someone who does spend for certain reasons to have no desire to do so.

The idea is for an MMO design that you just  . . . play.  You don't grind, it isn't focused on items.  I just wanted to see what reasons lay behind paying RL money beyond subscription and how both people who do that and don't would feel about a system where there wouldn't be much of a push for it.

The core of my design philosophy is to have a dynamic world where the natural functions of the world and physical limitations are set, but all interaction, building, etc. is based on the actions of players and the goals they set for themselves.  Mechanics are intuitive and naturalistic, never arbitrary or 'gamey.'

All design decisions are secondary to this and the setting of the world(s) it applies to could be varied.

This is a link to a poll in another mmorpg.com thread about spending time vs money to advance in an MMO:

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/211482/page/1

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

The only way to stop 'gold' selling is to make all inter-player trading impossible.

If you mean to stop it as a possible action, yes, but to stop it as a viable money making venture is quite possible.  It has been touched upon, but to state it clearly, if an MMO existed that was not so item dependent and no item (gold or otherwise) was 100% secure then I don't think you would see large scale gold selling on an organized level.

Just think about it, if items are not the main focus of the game and things are fairly easy to acquire (and just about as easy to loose) then the incentive to purchase is low (because it is not that difficult to get what you need yourself) and the disincentive to not purchase is high (because of the risk of loss).

So even if the incentive becomes high enough, what do we care?  If we don't like gold selling, then take the gold from both the seller and buyer whenever you can.  That will be a real deterent to any viable business model that has to have predictability in projected profit over costs, and such a system wouldn't allow for that.

Anyway, I created a poll once on this and related subjects and I would be appreciative if those following this thread would weigh in as the more responses the more representative the data might be.  Check it out:  http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/211482/page/1

I just have to bump this, it's been nearly a year but I would really like to collect some more data from the new crowd on the Developer's Corner as it has changed quite a bit over the last year.

Please take the poll as you have time, more data would provide better answers.

Thanks.

Those advocating natural penalties are on the right track, but I am surprised no one has mentioned the single most important thing to make a classless system work.

Even with natural penalties, there will still be a best strategy and thus a best build for the content, and if all players are expected to experience the same content then that will be the build they gravitate towards and the beauty of the skill based system is wasted.

What is needed is a diversity of situations that require unique combinations of skills.  Not only are situations diverse, but also the set of situations that a player chooses to participate in based on their own goals (not an endgame or linear grind chosen for them).  Thus players will have to find what they will be doing and how specific or broad their skill set with have to be.  Also with the changes in situation they will often have to adapt that skill set, sometimes training for a specific mission, or changing tactics as the situation dictates.

The only way to have this diversity of situation with any amount of quality without programming far more content than is possible for an MMO is to have a dynamic world where factors from the preset variables of the game world (weather, terrain, creature behavior, etc) combine with the various interactions of players with the game world and with each other (in completely free form social/economic/political ways) to create virtually unlimited dynamic content. 

If that doesn't start you seeing all the possibilities I could enumerate them, but hey, I'm late for work.  i.e. that reason I haven't been seen here for so long and that I now have no stars :(  (laments)

I'm all for future applications of various input devices, but I agree that for now we just need to get the software and the connection speeds to the point where decent collision detection is even feasible.  Then we could have really great multi-directional input with the mouse and the keyboard like nothing we have ever seen before.

While I still advocate totally player run economies, I see it being supported by the possibility to hire and maintain NPCs to do the higher scale or more boring jobs (running the shop 24/7 etc.)  They are still under the direction of players, though I don't rule out the possibility of NPCs who are given no direction acting for themselves to meet their basic 'needs' and in fact I see all mobs/monsters as this sort of AI.  They should have goals and if intelligent harvest resources and build villages and weapons.  

So their drops are not just components, but also what they themselves have made, but it didn't come out of thin air, they had to come by it the same as anyone else.  In fact they may even have quite good stuff that was looted from destroyed player villages and such. 

The point is that the economy is a natural system with everything coming from somewhere.  This is what creates the many niches of interaction. 

Some worry that player run economies won't always have everything running in full swing as we have come to expect, but that would really be the whole point.  There would be different situations in different areas and at different times.  This even creates economic incentive for fighters to clear dangerous areas for settlement and for crafters to relocate to remote outposts in order to bring their products to players who have previously been in a situation where most things were hard to come by, and at the time that was a fun and challenging aspect of their game, but perhaps they are ready to move on to some different interactions as civilization comes to the borderlands.  Of course if they don't like that they move farther out into the frontier.

Problem is that most MMOs have no collision detection or physics systems of any kind.  They make the game board world map and instanced modules and slap spawned mobs in them that simply compare stats and probabilities for damage dealt and received.  Boring.  I agree we need traps and puzzles to navigate, but to have interesting things like this, you really need to work from the ground up in the variety of ways to interact with the physical world.

Alternately in a player driven game every interaction is a potential 'quest' or 'task' and there would be no shortage of such.  I'm not talking about player created quests, but missions that are given out by players naturally to other players in order to accomplish goals they are working towards in the game.  Even if it ends up being a monster extermination quest, it is because someone needs those monsters destroyed because they are destroying their town or blocking their trade route and when they are dealt with, that actually changes something in the world.

In such a world players could use their skills and resources to build traps and dungeons to protect their items and interests and other players could try to overcome these obstacles in an endless cycle of defensive and offensive progress.