This is Minecraft though, a game, and not real life. In real life you'd be woken by the man trying to pry tiles off of your roof, but in mine craft you wont find out your home has been destroyed until the next time you log in. Boundaries and limits are there to keep civility and peace and make towns thrive rather than turning into some disgusting chaotic land grab. Notch himself is working on land claim flags to protect people in survival against griefers and give some sort of protection to people who aren't necessarily going to be playing on a server 24 hours a day. This is a game, and games usually have some rules that encourage behavior that results in fun.
The thing is, survival mode is about survival. Maybe some Role Playing mode can be about role playing, and creative mode is about creating, and some fight mode can be about fighting. Don't worry so much about adding things to the game, Minecraft has the ability to be many great things.
Edit: I don't think Notch should give up on the leveling idea entirely... most people actually voted /for/ leveling...
Hello everyone, apologies to anyone who has some similar ideas, I felt mine was unique enough to warrant a new topic. And I have pictures!
Goal of the game type: Providing players with a persistent western RPG style world in which they can explore, create, and adventure with friends.
General feel: This game type would do away with server reset map changes in exchange for an ever changing and expanding world that would encourage town building, leveling and other attributes commonly seen in online RPGs. We're not talking WOW here though, this would be small, perhaps even client hosted games of groups as small as 2 to as big as 32 players max (In the server at a time). The small size would mean that every player has more say in what goes on in the world. Towns and outposts would rise and fall, and dungeons and castles could become fearful sights or fall into obscurity and legend. Groups of adventurers could plunder and clash blades with increasingly more powerful monsters, or even with the blades of other players. Freedom is a huge feature of Minecraft, so players would be free to name mayors, councils, bakers, farmers and blacksmiths, or do away with titles and work where work is needed. Some players will reject society and join forces with the wicked, building dungeons and traps, and menacing trials to kill their enemies. This game type would not work to constrict the player into the old standards of RPG games, instead freeing them and guiding them with more rewards and depth than the standard survival mode has to offer.
The Player: Notch is doing an incredible job at making a game open ended enough to make this game type easily attainable. One of the only major additions to the code that the RPG type would require would be a leveling system. The player would start in each server at level 1, each individual server would track the progress and stats of each player (Basic online RPG stuff) and as time goes on and the player builds grows or kills, he will level up his skills. In my opinion, this should not be an experience based system, but skill based as seen in the game Oblivion. The reason for this is that the player does not have to fight if it is not desired, so rewarding the player with a farming skill for farming and a swordsman skill for fighting with a sword would seem most reasonable. Eventually, after raising enough skills the player will advance in level and be instructed to add points to desired attributes. This is where the player will gain speed, health, (magic???), strength, etc. and the player will be able to take on bigger tasks, carry more, run faster and fight stronger foes. As with standard RPG practice, the higher the level you are, the harder it will be to get to the next one. While it would be nice to have a well thought out, calculated system in place, the exact rules of leveling should be open for modification so that server hosts can optimize play experiences and ensure a fun experience for their players.
The Monsters: Straight and simple: give them levels, and make more types. Stronger monsters spawn in farther dungeons and castles, but ultimately that will be up to the dungeon masters and admins.
The World: This, to me, is the most exciting part to daydream about when I tool around in the indev. version of Minecraft. I always felt that for a game encouraging creativity and exploration, the maps on online games change a little too often. At times it feels the world is complete, ready to be explored and it is always at that moment the map change happens. This game type would do away with map changes entirely in favor of constant change within the map itself. This would be made possible with parceling land and user driven dungeons. The admins on a new server would divide the world up into tracts of land with different ownership possibilities and attributes. They are as follows:
-Towns: purchasable by players. PCs are allowed to build, mine, clear cut and do pretty much anything they want there. areas whose sizes are decided by admins will be flagged and open for purchase by players. good players spawn in towns. Admins are advised to build fortifications and walls to protect to citizens from monsters. monsters do not spawn in towns.
-Wilderness: full of trees, wild animals and rivers. PC's are allowed to cut and plant trees, and kill animals as well as farm, but not allowed to build or mine unless granted a plot of land by admins (good exceptions are watchtowers, farm houses, and outposts.) Monsters spawn in the wilderness at night, some types during the day and far from towns.
-Mines: Full of rock and ore, players are entitled to mine rock but not dirt (preventing ugly strip mines.) These can be permitted under tracts of wilderness or even towns. Building allowed but advised to be only where necessary. The entrance will likely be created by admins due to the dirt clause. Some monsters can spawn in mines so watch out.
-Dungeons: These are areas where evil players (discussed below) will be permitted to build dungeons and fortresses full of traps, monsters and treasure. building and mining not allowed for normal players. Monsters spawn in great numbers in dungeons.
More ideas for land types are welcome.
Once placed however, the land types would be in no way permanent. Admins could open up new land for settlements, dungeons and mines, and each time you hop onto the server, something will be different. Imagine this scenario: A town you helped found is attacked in the night by marauding monsters and evil characters. They burn the town hall and kill most of the residents leaving little standing. The admins announce that the town has fallen, and changes the land type to dungeon. You can no longer spawn there, and the next time you visit it, it is infested with monsters and has a new network of dark tunnels running underneath. If this sounds awesome, continue reading. Things like this would keep the world fresh and exciting, and players will never beg for a map change again.
Some servers i visit have multiple maps that the player can visit within the server via portals, and I think this is another great way to keep the world fresh and exciting. New maps can be introduced over time and there can even be maps with dedicated themes. floating fortresses that span entire maps. Heavenly beaches of bliss and creation. Hellish worlds of death, daring settlements to try and thrive there. If you can imaging these worlds connected together through portals and roads, this game type starts to sound pretty sweet.
The Dark Side It will be very important in a game featuring exploration and creation to allow players a choice over which side of the spectrum they want to pursue. Having players create dungeons not only adds more entertainment factors for those making the dungeons and traps, but also for those exploring them, Player created dungeons will grant a constant sense of freshness and uniqueness, especially considering how bland the dungeons in other adventure games are getting these days. Evil players will buy land in a similar way as good players, or have it granted to them by admins. Evil players will build dungeons and fill them with monsters of a level of their choosing (guided by the distance they are from the nearest settlement.) Essentially they will be setting down spawn points for monsters that will periodically appear to defend their homes from intruders. dungeon masters will also go unharmed by monsters in their own domain and any domain they have been given allegiance to. Essentially, dungeon masters don't work together in as large of groups as the good players. They might team up, but at times evil players will even fight other dungeon masters over control of new land. This is not necessarily guaranteed, as some servers may even choose to have dedicated towns for evil folk. These players will level up just as anyone else, but should not be allowed into towns (they should be easy enough to identify.)
Town Life As much as possible people should be encouraged to build towns and gain individual occupations in order to advance the well being of everyone. Farmers will grow food to be dispersed and turned into healing potions or cloth, or food. Miners will share resources with blacksmiths to get better tools, who will sell weapons to adventurers who ultimately provide the most gold to the town's economy. In some servers the admin may choose to set prices for items. In others, people will be free to barter and trade for goods, services and protection. Some sort of simple trade mechanic needs to be implemented in order for this to be possible, and I'm sure Notch will naturally be inclined to make a trade system for survival mode anyway once the multiplayer beta is released. Sticking to your profession will be beneficial as the skills you earn will enhance your trade over time. This will allow blacksmiths to make better weapons, farmers to grow better food, miners to possibly locate ore more efficiently (Throw the pick retrieve it and lick it? lawl) and everyone else will get profession boosts for sticking with it. It will be up to the players to appoint councils or not, or mayors, or city planers to build public workshops and inns and the community will be responsible for if a settlement thrives or fails miserably.
Here are a few pictures of a little "Model Town" I have been building in my free time:
Towns look great at night
Admins could have players start at the dock? maybe?
(Also if anyone wants a save of this map to explore the town, let me know the best way to post that)
So that's my abstract. There is a lot more that needs to go into an online RPG to make it work including the subtleties of item drops, dungeon rewards and player to player speech interaction, so whatever you have to add feel free to. I know however, that whatever does happen Notch is going to make the game open enough to make something like this easily possible as an added game mode after release. I do know though, that getting people to play a mod after the fact would be difficult and that's why I just had to suggest this. Hope you like it.
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Hello everyone, apologies to anyone who has some similar ideas, I felt mine was unique enough to warrant a new topic. And I have pictures!
Goal of the game type: Providing players with a persistent western RPG style world in which they can explore, create, and adventure with friends.
General feel: This game type would do away with server reset map changes in exchange for an ever changing and expanding world that would encourage town building, leveling and other attributes commonly seen in online RPGs. We're not talking WOW here though, this would be small, perhaps even client hosted games of groups as small as 2 to as big as 32 players max (In the server at a time). The small size would mean that every player has more say in what goes on in the world. Towns and outposts would rise and fall, and dungeons and castles could become fearful sights or fall into obscurity and legend. Groups of adventurers could plunder and clash blades with increasingly more powerful monsters, or even with the blades of other players. Freedom is a huge feature of Minecraft, so players would be free to name mayors, councils, bakers, farmers and blacksmiths, or do away with titles and work where work is needed. Some players will reject society and join forces with the wicked, building dungeons and traps, and menacing trials to kill their enemies. This game type would not work to constrict the player into the old standards of RPG games, instead freeing them and guiding them with more rewards and depth than the standard survival mode has to offer.
The Player: Notch is doing an incredible job at making a game open ended enough to make this game type easily attainable. One of the only major additions to the code that the RPG type would require would be a leveling system. The player would start in each server at level 1, each individual server would track the progress and stats of each player (Basic online RPG stuff) and as time goes on and the player builds grows or kills, he will level up his skills. In my opinion, this should not be an experience based system, but skill based as seen in the game Oblivion. The reason for this is that the player does not have to fight if it is not desired, so rewarding the player with a farming skill for farming and a swordsman skill for fighting with a sword would seem most reasonable. Eventually, after raising enough skills the player will advance in level and be instructed to add points to desired attributes. This is where the player will gain speed, health, (magic???), strength, etc. and the player will be able to take on bigger tasks, carry more, run faster and fight stronger foes. As with standard RPG practice, the higher the level you are, the harder it will be to get to the next one. While it would be nice to have a well thought out, calculated system in place, the exact rules of leveling should be open for modification so that server hosts can optimize play experiences and ensure a fun experience for their players.
The Monsters: Straight and simple: give them levels, and make more types. Stronger monsters spawn in farther dungeons and castles, but ultimately that will be up to the dungeon masters and admins.
The World: This, to me, is the most exciting part to daydream about when I tool around in the indev. version of Minecraft. I always felt that for a game encouraging creativity and exploration, the maps on online games change a little too often. At times it feels the world is complete, ready to be explored and it is always at that moment the map change happens. This game type would do away with map changes entirely in favor of constant change within the map itself. This would be made possible with parceling land and user driven dungeons. The admins on a new server would divide the world up into tracts of land with different ownership possibilities and attributes. They are as follows:
-Towns: purchasable by players. PCs are allowed to build, mine, clear cut and do pretty much anything they want there. areas whose sizes are decided by admins will be flagged and open for purchase by players. good players spawn in towns. Admins are advised to build fortifications and walls to protect to citizens from monsters. monsters do not spawn in towns.
-Wilderness: full of trees, wild animals and rivers. PC's are allowed to cut and plant trees, and kill animals as well as farm, but not allowed to build or mine unless granted a plot of land by admins (good exceptions are watchtowers, farm houses, and outposts.) Monsters spawn in the wilderness at night, some types during the day and far from towns.
-Mines: Full of rock and ore, players are entitled to mine rock but not dirt (preventing ugly strip mines.) These can be permitted under tracts of wilderness or even towns. Building allowed but advised to be only where necessary. The entrance will likely be created by admins due to the dirt clause. Some monsters can spawn in mines so watch out.
-Dungeons: These are areas where evil players (discussed below) will be permitted to build dungeons and fortresses full of traps, monsters and treasure. building and mining not allowed for normal players. Monsters spawn in great numbers in dungeons.
More ideas for land types are welcome.
Once placed however, the land types would be in no way permanent. Admins could open up new land for settlements, dungeons and mines, and each time you hop onto the server, something will be different. Imagine this scenario: A town you helped found is attacked in the night by marauding monsters and evil characters. They burn the town hall and kill most of the residents leaving little standing. The admins announce that the town has fallen, and changes the land type to dungeon. You can no longer spawn there, and the next time you visit it, it is infested with monsters and has a new network of dark tunnels running underneath. If this sounds awesome, continue reading. Things like this would keep the world fresh and exciting, and players will never beg for a map change again.
Some servers i visit have multiple maps that the player can visit within the server via portals, and I think this is another great way to keep the world fresh and exciting. New maps can be introduced over time and there can even be maps with dedicated themes. floating fortresses that span entire maps. Heavenly beaches of bliss and creation. Hellish worlds of death, daring settlements to try and thrive there. If you can imaging these worlds connected together through portals and roads, this game type starts to sound pretty sweet.
The Dark Side It will be very important in a game featuring exploration and creation to allow players a choice over which side of the spectrum they want to pursue. Having players create dungeons not only adds more entertainment factors for those making the dungeons and traps, but also for those exploring them, Player created dungeons will grant a constant sense of freshness and uniqueness, especially considering how bland the dungeons in other adventure games are getting these days. Evil players will buy land in a similar way as good players, or have it granted to them by admins. Evil players will build dungeons and fill them with monsters of a level of their choosing (guided by the distance they are from the nearest settlement.) Essentially they will be setting down spawn points for monsters that will periodically appear to defend their homes from intruders. dungeon masters will also go unharmed by monsters in their own domain and any domain they have been given allegiance to. Essentially, dungeon masters don't work together in as large of groups as the good players. They might team up, but at times evil players will even fight other dungeon masters over control of new land. This is not necessarily guaranteed, as some servers may even choose to have dedicated towns for evil folk. These players will level up just as anyone else, but should not be allowed into towns (they should be easy enough to identify.)
Town Life As much as possible people should be encouraged to build towns and gain individual occupations in order to advance the well being of everyone. Farmers will grow food to be dispersed and turned into healing potions or cloth, or food. Miners will share resources with blacksmiths to get better tools, who will sell weapons to adventurers who ultimately provide the most gold to the town's economy. In some servers the admin may choose to set prices for items. In others, people will be free to barter and trade for goods, services and protection. Some sort of simple trade mechanic needs to be implemented in order for this to be possible, and I'm sure Notch will naturally be inclined to make a trade system for survival mode anyway once the multiplayer beta is released. Sticking to your profession will be beneficial as the skills you earn will enhance your trade over time. This will allow blacksmiths to make better weapons, farmers to grow better food, miners to possibly locate ore more efficiently (Throw the pick retrieve it and lick it? lawl) and everyone else will get profession boosts for sticking with it. It will be up to the players to appoint councils or not, or mayors, or city planers to build public workshops and inns and the community will be responsible for if a settlement thrives or fails miserably.
Here are a few pictures of a little "Model Town" I have been building in my free time:
Towns look great at night
Admins could have players start at the dock? maybe?
(Also if anyone wants a save of this map to explore the town, let me know the best way to post that)
So that's my abstract. There is a lot more that needs to go into an online RPG to make it work including the subtleties of item drops, dungeon rewards and player to player speech interaction, so whatever you have to add feel free to. I know however, that whatever does happen Notch is going to make the game open enough to make something like this easily possible as an added game mode after release. I do know though, that getting people to play a mod after the fact would be difficult and that's why I just had to suggest this. Hope you like it.