Here's what i'd like it to be:
- It's centered on Sigil.
- - From Sigil PCs can access any D&D realm (DL, FR, RL, GH etc).
- Players and companies can connect their own content to Sigil
- When you load into a setting you have to comply with the rules of that setting
- - This usually means that you make a character just for that area
- - You can have a Sanity stat in Ravenloft
- - In my server everything is purple
- Players can rate content
- - Highly rated content gets bigger/fancier portals/doors
- - If you make something stupid your portal will be a sewer grate on the ass end of the city, Berk.
- - Or maybe you can pay cash to have a big fancy portal (and fund the cost of connecting)
- - If your content is super popular, WotC could offer to host it
- Did i mention that users and companies could make their own content?
- - Much like the awesomeness that was NWN1 (but not the fail that was NWN2), players can get an SDK to make their own stuff. Items, powers, avatars, objects... like SecondLife but without flying *****es.
- - Maybe they can even charge for it. Have a Sigil currency that players can use to access certain realms. It could be 100# for a permanent key or 10# per visit. This would encourage creation of big, awesome settings.
- - The creator would prolly have to host their own server, or rent space on the official servers.
- - Have a status for content marking it as 4E compliant if they DON'T mess with the rules.
- Have official campaign/content
- - Make the story move in stages and base instancing on that. If you've completed the Quest to Retrieve the Golden Retriever, it stays completed, you will be in the same instance as all the other players who have done so as well. Guild Wars did this beautifully.
** i am subscribed to this on a daily basis, i might not get back to this right away **
The system is built to run on as a video game
No, it's not.
And for the love of god, make it turn based
Definitly.
Either that, or a beat-em-up.
No, scratch that. The gams is REQUIRED to be a beat-em-up.
Basically, you run around like any other MMO, and you see creatures running around in scripted paths. When you enter into the creature's space, the screen changes to a grid format with turn based combat.
Using this basic format with a loose, randomly generated terrain builder, each PC could be the "Leader" of a band of henchmen that are collected or recruited in various cities (ala Guild Wars). During combat, these henchmen could either be player controlled, or AI driven with specific tactics based on their personalites/classes/builds.
This would allow soloing, and to accomodate teamplay you would simply kick out as many henchmen as you had replacement PCs for.
I would buy it in a heartbeat.
But, I would also kill for a single-player Eberron RPG. But for The Sovereigns' sake, put it on Khorvaire with actual Eberron fluff, not in Xen'drik where the devs can "officially" ignore all of Eberron's fluff and do whatever they want.
Also, I don't think you'll see this in any MMO any time soon, unfortunately:
- Did i mention that users and companies could make their own content?
- - Maybe they can even charge for it.
Game companies have to protect themselves legally, so there are generally two basic models for a company allowing user content. The first is the "hands-off" approach, which is used in moddable games like NWN. The company gives you the tools to make mods, includes a clause that says you're not allowed to charge money for what you make, and otherwise says they have no control or interest in what you do with them. That way, if you make a Zelda mod for NWN, and Nintendo doesn't like it, they can only sue you, not Bioware. Bioware gets to say they only gave you the tools and you were the one who infringed Zelda's copyright.
The other approach is "highly monitored and filtered". This is in a few MMO's and some games like Spore. These companies include user content on their own servers, thus "officially supporting" it, which means they can be sued if they are making money off of infringed copyrights or illegal material, even if they try to say they didn't know about it. It's their responsibility to know about it. So if you have the ability to make porn or copyrighted stuff, they need full time staff there filtering everything and deleting objectionable things, and that's expensive. They'd need to be twice as careful if they were making subscription money (like monthly fees) by hosting things that might be illegal.
It would be cool, but I don't think it will happen any time soon. Not while 95% of the internet thinks it would be hilarious to walk around Sigil as a giant dong.
That being said, I too am in the Eberron single-player, turn-based, Khorvaire based, RPG, though I will add the caveat that I want it to be just heroic tier. And damn it, no amnesiacs need apply!
Perhaps a tool-set could be realeased as part of an expansion, but I would really like the game to focus on being a great game in and of its shipped content alone.
(unless you're talking about the baldur's gate console version, thats understandable, also malice towards nwn 2 is ok, but even that wasn't awful)
sadly, the only company that would do a D&D game justice (bioware) has stated they'd never do a WoTC IP again.
also: Baldur's gate and NWN could be set to turn based. (as can the upcoming game: Dragon Age, which is the spiritual successor to the baldur's gate line)
so you want final fantasy tactics?
Still considered a classic.
'Course, they tried to do something similar with D&D Tactics on the PSP. It's an ok game, but the mixing of exploration and combat at the same time leaves me kind of cold.
so you want final fantasy tactics?
Considering how critically acclaimed the Final Fantasy Tactics series is, is that really a bad idea?
No seriously, Tactics was made by the same guys who did Tactics Ogre, and while the translation was awful the game itself was a masterpiece. D&D would be blessed if it had a game half as good* (albeit since it would be made in English, at least the dialog would make more sense than FFT).
Who told the guy doing the translating he was fired three days before he finished so he could sabotage it? That had to have been the case.
*: Final Fantasy fans would be blessed if the Tactics team took over the whole damn franchise. There, I said it.
Pretty as Conan.
Bloody and fast as Dark Messiah of Might & Magic.
And leave turn-based for VTTs, thank you.
Considering how critically acclaimed the Final Fantasy Tactics series is, is that really a bad idea?
No seriously, Tactics was made by the same guys who did Tactics Ogre, and while the translation was awful the game itself was a masterpiece. D&D would be blessed if it had a game half as good (albeit since it would be made in English, at least the dialog would make more sense than FFT)
Who told the guy doing the translating he was fired three days before he finished so he could sabotage it? That had to have been the case.
let me rephrase, FFT was ana amazing game, but a
No seriously, Tactics was made by the same guys who did Tactics Ogre, and while the translation was awful the game itself was a masterpiece. D&D would be blessed if it had a game half as good (albeit since it would be made in English, at least the dialog would make more sense than FFT)
It got a fresh, and decent, translation when it was re-released on the PSP. As well as animated cut scenes with voice acting, the Dark Knight class made playable, and a new character ported over from FF XIII (almost identical to the default main character, not important to the story in the least, though).
let me rephrase, FFT was ana amazing game, but acompletlydifferent (sub)genre ofgameRPGS. Baldur's gate vs. tactics is slightly apples and oranges, based on project goals and desired end results.
Then the real question left begged is whether 4th Edition would be best served by a game like Baldur's Gate or like Tactics. One advantage of making the game more akin to Tactics (and it's a big one to me) is that the game can effectively be directly translated from the actual RPG. By making it like Baldur's Gate, concessions will have to be made in order to suit a real-time medium.
The geek in me wants a direct translation of the tabletop game's mechanics in a D&D videogame. The adult in me simply wants a 4th Edition-based game to be released. The kid in me wishes that he could go to Chuck E. Cheese without getting weird faces.
I am beginning to wonder if there was going to be another D&D video game any time soon. Since 4th edition hit the shelves, the only D&D video game, of any kind, to hit the shelves was the 2nd expansion of Neverwinter Nights 2. In other words, there has not been a *new* D&D video game since 3rd Quarter 2007. The last time there was no D&D game released in a year was 1987. Given that these things are generally announced at least a year before release, it looks like 2009 is going to have no game.
That being said, I too am in the Eberron single-player, turn-based, Khorvaire based, RPG, though I will add the caveat that I want it to be just heroic tier. And damn it, no amnesiacs need apply!
Perhaps a tool-set could be realeased as part of an expansion, but I would really like the game to focus on being a great game in and of its shipped content alone.
Actually, '09 has the release of the new DDO, which from the sound of it, is going to be fairly different from what we have now.
That's how I'd do a 4e engine, have it toggle, having party members use powers based on AI, and the player can swap between party members at will. Figure out a good timing setup for abilities (1 turn 5ish secs), if people want turn based hardcore D&D, make it a toggle in the settings.
Angry snip
Wow, my apologies. I didn't quite mean it that offensively, would you like me to go back and edit my post?
Also, "so you want final fantasy tactics" wasn't supposed to be condescending towards FFT, it's a (really) good game. I was more trying to figure out your idea of the right game style.
Seriously, you two should be ashamed, you have no right whatsoever to tell me I have bad taste or am not allowed to have the taste that I do have.
Actually, they have every right to tell you that your taste is horrible. They have the right to say pretty much whatever they want. Thankfully, they have no power to enforce their opinions upon others.
Never played the PC Baldur's Gate games, but NWN (at least the first one) is a fine game. However, just because you disagree with me does not mean I feel any need to change your opinion. Hell, at times I have horrible taste. I would gladly sit down for an all day Godzilla movie marathon. Bad voice overs, ridiculous plots, and the titular star is quite blatantly a guy in a rubber suit trashing a scale mock up of a city. It's horrible. But it makes the little boy in me smile.
baldur's gate (and the infinity engine -thus BG 1, BG 2, Icewindale 1 & 2, and planescape: torment), had the ability to be turned into a turn based game once combat began "auto-pause" was the name of the feature.
That's how I'd do a 4e engine, have it toggle, having party members use powers based on AI, and the player can swap between party members at will. Figure out a good timing setup for abilities (1 turn 5ish secs), if people want turn based hardcore D&D, make it a toggle in the settings.
And, just like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, the game will have to make concessions for the fact that it is only doing something like turn-based play. Interrupt mechanics generally fail in such a system (or come out working wonky, like out attacks of opportunity worked in Neverwinter Nights). Even with the toggle, developers are either forced to make the toggle create a fake turn-based environment, or create two different combat engines for the game (and as a programmer, I can imagine that it would be a nightmare to code).
Even if it was an awful game, I think the new game should have a system similar to D&D Tactics, but improved in the areas that people hated about that game (in other words, don't restrict the class system in a way detrimental to how the game functions, make the menus more intuitive, allow the player to zoom the camera in and out, show the math behind the dice as actions are taken in an easy-to-read format, don't cut off missions after the monsters are slain without giving the player a chance to loot, don't force players to use pre-generated characters in multiplayer). Then it could play more like classic Fallout, where the game stops whenever combat begins.
i'd be happy with a straight up combat sim where i load in PCs and load in monsters to have them fight.
i build a combat setting. Select and position monsters, traps and terrain mods. My players log in (from anywhere in the world), form a marching order and off we go! i think WotC said they were working on something like that.
The first two posts must be referring to some other game or edition. 4E is clearly built to support use of a computer. It has virtually nothing left to interpretation. In earlier editions the DM had to figure out what spells did. In this, it's all laid out like code. That's a GOOD thing (sort of). When some points out that 4E is designed to run on a computer, that's not an insult. Even if we pretend WotC didn't have that intention, the game screams procedure. It seems to be the most coherent/deliberately designed edition yet. Making a 1:1 video game of 4E would we much easier than any other edition.
OffTopic
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As for opinions.... If you state your opinion like a child, "This sucks/rules", expect to catch a face full of bile. If you express your opinions like like an adult, "I think/feel/believe this sucks/rules" or "I (don't) enjoy it". You won't take as much grief.
Don't state your opinions as if they are facts. Your experiences are your own. When you express an opinion as if it were a fact, expect it to be attacked as if you said "at sea level water freezes at 2343 Celsius". If you say you didn't like it, i CAN'T disagree. i can't tell you that you DID.
If you insult something, there's a good chance that someone will take offense. Every band is someone's favorite. There's no need to be insulting when you can simply say "They aren't my cup of tea for reasons X, Y and Z".
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The MMO version will be based of WoW-style mechanics but use D&D's races and classes.
Not likely. Any such game isn't even in development yet (unless Wizards is keeping something like that still a secret). So by the time a game like that did get made, the engine that WoW uses would be sooooooo old and dated.
So any 4E MMO would probably use something ahead of Warcraft. If they're smart, they'll do what Blizzard did, though, and make their game low on specs, simple on mechanics, and stupidly easy to use so a larger playerbase can get into it quickly. And then slow it all down in the end-game with the standard MMO endless grind. So that playerbase can then argue amongst itself over and over about how uber they all are. Then again, that's just a feature that Blizzard appropriated from all other MMOs. They just did it so well is all.
:P
Example? NWN2, I was level 12, had to raid a warehouse. The very simple warehouse guards were level 12 and 13, then. Wow, I do feel like a hero... NOT.
Well, isn't that actually what happens in every D&D computer game and every D&D edition?
PCs are special, are heroes, are tough .... wait a moment. So why is it that every human in the MM is as tough as a PC? So we PCs are the only ones able to defend this PoL from the darkness? Strange, because the MM tells me that the human guard also has 47 hp, AC 18 and +10 to hit, just like the supposed heroes do at third level.
MM2 get's even better. You didn't dare to think that just because you're an epic level demigod you could just storm into the audience chamber and threaten the king, did you? Because he's a a level 23 elite (human noble) and would beat the crap out of any single PC (barring certain char opt builds). Not so special and heroic after all.
Well, isn't that actually what happens in every D&D computer game and every D&D edition?
No? Is there some suggestion in the DMG that I missed, saying that whenever a situation is resolved through combat, it must be challenging, level-appropriate combat?
PCs are special, are heroes, are tough .... wait a moment. So why is it that every human in the MM is as tough as a PC?
Because the Monster Manual is a collection of opponents for use in challenging, level-appropriate combat, rather than a treatise on dark ages peasantry?
no thanks, I'd have to ask if you would really want to see one???
mind you I know we will see one at some point, but where I cant say.
most likely would be set in the quasi pol setting....
oh so the OP wants in Sigil, well to do that, you would have to have active portals to other worlds......
no thanks, I'd have to ask if you would really want to see one???
mind you I know we will see one at some point, but where I cant say.
most likely would be set in the quasi pol setting....
Well like I was going to say they'll eventually make one, but get it wrong, so it doesn't really matter.
- Highly detailed and fully customizable character configuration (ex: The Sims, Elder Scrolls, etc.)
- Highly detailed and fully customizable map configuration (ex: The Multiple Source Engine Games CS: Source, Half Life Source, etc.)
- High amount of user control (ex: EVE)
- Alignment influenced game dynamics (ex: KoToR, Mass Effect, etc.)
- Solo and Multiplayer playability (ex: Guild Wars)
- Heavily instanced and strongly "Achievement" oriented (ex: Guild Wars)
- Time Based Turn system balanced against elements of Hack and Slash, a sort of Final Fantasy 7 meets Devil May Cry system that I have yet to see but have an idea or two how to make work by adding a touch of Fable's system.
The key is to create a game that allows the player to make of it what he/she will and self perpetuate its own content. The game then need only present it's official content along side user content in a fully supported manner. It brings the hardcore fanatics and the casual players together in a balanced manner.
P1: "Ok, we are partyied up now, lets find a DM"
p2: shouts "Hey we need a DM here...."
DM_Bad_Boy: "Ok, I'll run your group."
p1: whisper to p2 "Dude, hes a TPK DM run!!!"
p2: whisper to p1 "Dude, running won't help, log quick!!!"
Awww the virtual memories....
It is done by Bioware, and looks to be run more like the Jedi Knights games than NWN.
The problem is we don't want a D&D like experience, we want a D&D experience. If we wanted a "like" experience we'd stick with DDO.
So anything that doesn't have the brand name is not worthwhile? Really?
Really?
REEEeeeaaally?
(doin' a little Miz here.)
I would pay a monthly fee to WOTC for a 4E D&D fully digital collectible miniatures game.
I would want to see the game similar to a trading card game with online sales of packs and boosters.
I would like to then build a warband using my digital miniatures.
Then I would want to see a place to que up and go head to head against both computer or other real players.
With that I would want to see is a digital battlemap using the 4E combat system to resolve each battle between players and their warbands.
It woudl be worth my time and money to be able to have access to picking and choosing my minis for my team and then having nonstop battles.
I do not care for an mmo with any kind of leveling system.
So anything that doesn't have the brand name is not worthwhile? Really?
Really?
REEEeeeaaally?
(doin' a little Miz here.)
I'm not sure what "doin' a little Miz here" means but yeah, brand names don't equal quality. While there may be some brand names that are actually better than others, for the most part I find that there is little or no difference between a brand name and a non-brand name. I also didn't say it would be worthless. I said it wouldn't be D&D because they would get sued if it was.
When I think about what I want in a game from D&D and what is realistic in terms of what game designers can actually do with the amount of budget, design team size, and time involved I can easily see myself logging on to my computer 24/7 for what I have in mind.
I would pay a monthly fee to WOTC for a 4E D&D fully digital collectible miniatures game.
I would want to see the game similar to a trading card game with online sales of packs and boosters.
I would like to then build a warband using my digital miniatures.
Then I would want to see a place to que up and go head to head against both computer or other real players.
With that I would want to see is a digital battlemap using the 4E combat system to resolve each battle between players and their warbands.
It woudl be worth my time and money to be able to have access to picking and choosing my minis for my team and then having nonstop battles.
I do not care for an mmo with any kind of leveling system.
I agree that would be cool, but I would also like to have the leveling stuff and be able to play a plot filled game. I think my idea of having DMs run adventures with parties would be cool.
TURN BASED!
EBERRON!
FINAL DESTINATION!
I would pay a monthly fee to WOTC for a 4E D&D fully digital collectible miniatures game.
I would want to see the game similar to a trading card game with online sales of packs and boosters.
Sorry, but no, just no. I still think (hope) that the general outrage they received for revealing that they were thinking about charging money to buy the virtual miniatures (and only including 2D tokkens for anyone else) for the virtual tabletop is one of the reasons why it has been put on hold. And that when if it ever comes back it will be without that stupid moneygrap scheme.
If they make such a game then only if it's kept strictly seperate from the virtual game table. So you have all miniatures avaible as part of the game table by default, but you have to try your luck buying them in random virtual packages to be allowed to use them for skirmish
I would like to then build a warband using my digital miniatures.
Then I would want to see a place to que up and go head to head against both computer or other real players.
With that I would want to see is a digital battlemap using the 4E combat system to resolve each battle between players and their warbands.
Well, that wouldn't be D&D anymore. It would be a D&D spinoff using familiar creatures but modified rules (as the actual rules are not balanced for PC vs. PC or monster vs. monster), just like the cancelled real-life D&D miniatures game.
Could you just see a LAN party playing 4E on several PCs going after the BBEG! Yeah that's what I'm talking about.
Not likely. Any such game isn't even in development yet (unless Wizards is keeping something like that still a secret). So by the time a game like that did get made, the engine that WoW uses would be sooooooo old and dated.
Just to be clear, it would be Atari (Infrogames) that is keeping it secret. They have the rights (for now) to DnD computer games.
BG2 SoA, torment, PoR, ToEe, IwD, HoW were all very good games and none of them were turn based. Maybe they have the options, but its not default.
As for yet ANOTHER mmo. Please god, no. Unless its free to play. We have enough vampiric monthly fee's in our hobbies.
Also a game needs to be focused. Having it include every setting would only diminish the amount of possible detail. Its just not realistic. I also agree that 4e has a very video game like feeling and it would be very easy to covert it mechanically. Then again none of the D&D rpg's have ever been 100% by the rules. You make a video game "based" on the editions rules, not a direct conversion.
I'm sure we'll see some games based on 4e, probably adventure games though.
DNDO is supposedly receiving an update that makes it somewhere between 3e and 4e.
So anything that doesn't have the brand name is not worthwhile? Really?
Really?
REEEeeeaaally?
(doin' a little Miz here.)
Your not awesome so stop doing a little Miz.
Dungeons and Dragons deserves an on-line incarnation whose charcaters and monsters look realistic and restrained like in that game. Not flashy, cartoonish anime with neon numbers floating above their heads like in WoW.
They divided the chat and the combat information into two side screens. That way the visuals were unclutterd and pure: if you turned off the chat and combat screens and other information, it looked like a lovely animated movie. The trees, grass, water, shadows: everything was beautiful.
The armour and weapons looked like armour and weapons you could actually wield. (Although after WoW's debut the designers started to borrow the huge fantasy axes and studded armour. No chainmail bikinis though.)
The greatest, most immersive, most exciting and most legendary MMORPG was Dark Age of Camelot in its heyday.
I understanding that you're saying here , but I will also point that EQ1, AC1, and UO players will say the same thing about their games in their "heyday" .
notably the Heyday was when they (all the classic mmo's) were still targeting their games as "D&D over the internet". When MMO's became a market, things changed.
I understanding that you're saying here , but I will also point that EQ1, AC1, and UO players will say the same thing about their games in their "heyday" .
notably the Heyday was when they (all the classic mmo's) were still targeting their games as "D&D over the internet". When MMO's became a market, things changed.
I was into Final Fantasy XI before I hit level 65/70 it was fun. After that it just got ignorant. There was no way to make enough money to keep your character alive without buying it from RMTs. It was just bad. I stopped playing and all of a sudden I had all of this free time on my hands. So I went to college.
There would probably be race distiction, Arkhosia would have Dragonborn (duh), Humans (disgusted by their Tiefling relatives for dealing with devils), and maybe dwarves and goliaths (Uhhh... they like mountains and Arkhosia has lotsa mountains?). Also some kobolds running around, like the goblins in WoW.
Bael Turath is a tougher call, It would definitely have Tiefling, I could see eladrin, several eladrin cities could be conquered, and eladrin half-heartedly fight for the Tieflings. Halflings could be in their. Maybe some orcs enjoy the ruthless style of the Tieflings and join up. A way tougher call, no doubt.
That's my idea in a nutshell.
I think the best setting for a D&D MMO actually predates the game in the fluff. I'm talking about the war between Arkhosia and Bael Turath. It would be very Warcraft-ish, mostly fighting the other side.
There would probably be race distiction, Arkhosia would have Dragonborn (duh), Humans (disgusted by their Tiefling relatives for dealing with devils), and maybe dwarves and goliaths (Uhhh... they like mountains and Arkhosia has lotsa mountains?). Also some kobolds running around, like the goblins in WoW.
Bael Turath is a tougher call, It would definitely have Tiefling, I could see eladrin, several eladrin cities could be conquered, and eladrin half-heartedly fight for the Tieflings. Halflings could be in their. Maybe some orcs enjoy the ruthless style of the Tieflings and join up. A way tougher call, no doubt.
That's my idea in a nutshell.
How about an invasion from the Far Realms? You would have all the races and classes vs. a bunch of aberrant monsters and their allies and minions.
Bel