[draccan]

Hi

I have this idea for a new mmo that could be really cool but also very difficult to make, but not impossible (except for naysayers and people with no imagination)..

Anyways it is based on the book THE ROAD by CORMAC MCCARTHY (you don't need to buy the IP per se, though it would be nice).



Story and concept

The story is one of survival in a post apocalyptic world. The world is ravaged by nuclear holocaust and is dying. There is no crops, everything is burned and scarred. There is almost no food. People are grouping into scavening groups. Some prey on others and even eat them in desperation. Others in turn will just survive and not be blindsided by evil to live.

Will you be the decent loner and survivor, the one carrying light to others and aiming to recreate a society or will you scavenge and kill anyone you meet?



Skills and progression

This mmo is skill based. You can learn to drive a truck or shoot a gun. However bullets and gasoline is scarce. The main thing here is not skills or the usual progression in mmos. The main thing is survival.

You can lose skill points when dying. But not age.

Also you have a reputation / conscience gauge that shows you (and other players) how much bad stuff you have done. Stealing / looting / killing? Self defense kills or unmotivated killings.



Weather

The weather is very important. Very dynamic. You live and die by the weather. Finding shelter, avoiding others and not getting your things wet or finding a container for your rotten apples. Maybe even logging a shopping car around. Having tools to fix it. All this is important.

Radiation is a big factor here. Always watch your radiation levels. If they get too high you might start coughing blood, get tired more easily, able to carry less, finally it might become lethal and you die.



Avatars and aging and dying

In this mmo your avatar ages. You can play any age, but you will get older. So the older you start, the shorter you will live. But the younger you are the more hard it is to survive and make it. Older ones start more skilled. Younger ones starts with fewer skills and will be more in need of tutalage and playing around with things to learn how they work.

While there is no instancing there are large / no huge zones. Population is very low and npcs are scattered around but not met often.

Dying is finite after 10 (or so) lives. You have ten precious lives and then permadeath. Your avatar can be fat or thin, but you might lose endurance if very over weight. Also you loose weight when not eating. Since food is incredible hard to find (you can die from hunger and exhaustion) you most likely will loose a lot of weight and your avatar changes with it.



Groups

Guilds here are 10 men maximum. No more can find food or sustain themselves.



Surviving and goal

Surviving is key here and moving away from contaminated areas. Svavenge for food. Find shelter for storms.

Everywhere you go you are afraid you meet other people. Most likely they will steal your equipment (full loot) and food, they probably kill you too and if you are really unlucky they will eat you.



Spawn points and dying

When you start the game you will start in one of a multitude of places. This could pretty much be thousands of places. So no spawn camping.

You pretty much go back to square one when you die. Also death is closer to disaster / contamination zones, so you would want to move south towards Mexico or South of Spain (depending on continent played).

People will naturally go south to avoid that radiation. Once they get really south (takes months of playing) the endgame starts where people will try to find places to grow food or group up, create a civil society, laws or just scavenge and steal from others.



Health bars and other mechanics

The health bars doesn't bounce up and down like normal. Here you can get wounded. Wounds get affected. Can you get medicine? Will you hump around on a broken leg? Be carried by your mates (suicide and restart of this toon is possible).

There is full loot in this game. Should people not pick up your stuff you can find it again.

There is no magic bags holding tons of stuff. What you keep must be fitted on you, get regular bags fitting normal size stuff. Or a car and gasoline if really really lucky, but this will only get you so far, roads blocked and broken and if you leave the car it can be hotwired or stolen.



Weapons and equipment and fighting

Weapons here is not your tradition mmo. If you get a gun with one bullet you are dangerous. You can use threatening stances with your weapons. Your enemies will know if they don't stealth (not invisibility but hiding) and disarm you, you might kill them. Survival is key here. On the other hand you are not likely to shoot your bullet if there are three with sticks or clubs. It is a delicate balance. Will you yield your food. Negotiate.

Here it is possible by the way to have instant online chat (if you enable it for your toon) with people around you so you dont have to write. So you can keep the gun pointed and engage in discussions. There is no certainty that handing over some food means they wont demand more.



Missions and quests

There are no npcs with question marks over their heads. If you meet a child crying you can either avoid it, go there and talk or go there and kill the child and eat it. If you talk you might be asked to help the child find a parent. Do so can be on your own peril. You might get to group with npcs that will let you lead them or they might give you a can of tomatoes (food for the day) or even some medicine.

Every day is a quest to avoid cold, find food, find ways of coping with your radiation levels, electrical storms and smokey days, days of scorching heat.



Endgame

When you get to the endgame you will either fight to create a scavenging society, be a hired merc for mishap bands of killers or loners trying to carve our a life for them and their friends and familiy or just themselves, or a group of decent human being trying to recreate order in their lives and society. Player cities (more like camps with adv. ones having a good stockade and irrigation and some basic sanitation) and be built and destroyed. The land is vast and you can hide for a while but not for ever. There are constantly changing and moving ressources to gather and split between you or take and keep for yourself.

A game of survival where you are constantly on your toes to survive and move on with your destiny. You might even group up and play a husband, wife and four kids. All servers are pvp, all servers are full loot. There is no carebear, no elves, no magic, just the nitty gritty fights to find food and live in a world gone mad, in a world where a rotten apple might be the sustanance that keeps you alive to live and fight the next day.

NPCs might track you and hunt you down. Hiding and stealth, removing tracks after you when it snows, freeing people about to be eaten by thugs, crawling in tall grass to snatch that truck with food away for a player who left it for a second to go scavenge an old scarred house.

This mmo is a change to all you know about mmos. While combat is a part of the game there are no classes, no magic, no soldiers with unlimited (or even lots) of ammo. Every thing is dirt realistic. You find 20 gallons of gasoline? How are you going to carry it. Either put it in a shopping cart if you are lucky to have one or dig it down to pick it up later. Digging leaves a mark that other players can track maybe.

Besides player versus player there is also a lot of fighting from npcs. Random events, npcs travelling or hiding in a forest, a house where npcs keep prisoners. In the endgame there could be npc groups. And they might disagree with your brutal warrior society or your democratic group of freemen and thus try to slay you and burn your city and steal your crops.



Get the picture? Comments are welcome. Please don't flame!



Draccan

[Rolfmario]

Very odd. But I like it.

[MadGonzo]

I would play that, though im not a fan of realistic mmo's (in that sense) esp. modern/space etc.
Much rather have a low/high fantasy world
ah well
id still play!

[Aleteh]

I totally dig this idea, great stuff

[draccan]

Further info

If you kill a npc boy or even help him find a parent he might not spawn that place again.. next time six hours later someplace else with a new random name.

The game will need adv. mathematics for AI and for ressources. Depending on logged in people there needs to be just about enough ressources for most people to get some food, but not enough so that you lose the interest in how hard it is to find food.
Famine is a part of the game! Esp. for endgame where you actually start growing stuff further away from the hardest hit disaster zones.
Concerning the AI there is npcs migrating from disaster zones towards south too. Literally travelling for days and days making stops, camps etc. Some random patterns here to make it unpredictable. Also you never know if they are good or bad people, killers or decent survivors. Meeting them is a taking a big chance.
Scouting on others, spying is important. Randomness factors. But controlled in a way where the GMs can up the ressources or lower the amount of NPC where necessary.

You wake up in this mmo lying somewhere, with nothing. Your starting character might get a choice of say 1 item; frail cart that will last you a few days but that might be upgradeable / repaired, a pocket/utility knife, a club, a matchbox for fire etc.

[Lykel]

I enjoy this concept, however, I do not believe it would attract such a large audience due to the limited time you have with your avatar. You would spend hours on a character and then he/she would just drop dead. However, if there was a way to reverse your age but keep the skills (For example you learn how to control the radiation. It comes with side effects, but you become younger)

[draccan]

Originally Posted by Lykel I enjoy this concept, however, I do not believe it would attract such a large audience due to the limited time you have with your avatar. You would spend hours on a character and then he/she would just drop dead. However, if there was a way to reverse your age but keep the skills (For example you learn how to control the radiation. It comes with side effects, but you become younger)

I don't think that there should be reverse of age. It would kill the fun and realism. Do you get grey haired, limp due to a wound? Will people listen to you as you can teach others skills or kill you due to your weakness?

One idea you gave me though was that once you get further away from the disaster areas and towards the south of the endgame maybe you can foster and bring up a child and over time you can take it over as your main (until age 12 it follows you like npc / pet that can stay or follow you as you command). And in the mean time teach it your skills.
However it is also vulnerable and can die. But friends can take it over if they can save it and save it for you for a later on. Or take it over and keep it as theirs (they can use it as main)..

[Lykel]

I guess if you could create a protégée who took over your main character then it would be fine for your old man/woman to die.

1)Would the game include player housing?
2)Would it be PvP based rather than most MMO games with are PvE with PvP content?
3)Would there be a sort of countdown? If this happened in real life, then the Nuclear Reactors would break down and eventually destroy what is left of the earth. Would there be a server event to stop this event? Or would it simply be something you have to attempt to run away from or accept?

[draccan]

Originally Posted by Lykel I guess if you could create a protégée who took over your main character then it would be fine for your old man/woman to die. 1)Would the game include player housing? 2)Would it be PvP based rather than most MMO games with are PvE with PvP content? 3)Would there be a sort of countdown? If this happened in real life, then the Nuclear Reactors would break down and eventually destroy what is left of the earth. Would there be a server event to stop this event? Or would it simply be something you have to attempt to run away from or accept?

The protegée idea is really good.

1. Yes but not before getting out of the main disaster zones. Sorta like getting to level 80 in Aoc and THEN Sieging. You work for a long time to survive, steal and plunder or scavenge for food in the countryside and cans found in abandoned houses.

Once you get to endgame you can create makeshift houses and player cities. But they can be razed by storms, npcs or other players.
Player cities have a 4-6 hour window every day, where they can be attacked (adjusted after testing and listening to feedback). This is visible on poles placed way out of the city for all to see.

2. Both.
NPCs are important to make empty zones populated. To keep the story going, to give unusual encounters and experiences, to balance endgame.

3. I believe it should be post apocalyptic. But I am not against the thought of new disasters. Earthquakes? Fallout problems? Ressources becoming contaminated or even nuclear blackmail as some guild finds and build on (so it works) a nuclear bomb. Either you pay us tax or we make a dirty bomb destroy your city.

[draccan]

Now all we need is a game company with GUTS