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Imagining GTA Online - Diverse Genres In MMORPGs
Thanks to 1UP for their 'Pray For It' article discussing an ideal, but unfortunately fictional game of their dreams, Grand Theft Auto Online. In envisioning "taking the basic template from Grand Theft Auto III and just adding more than one enterprising thug", as well as players banding together ("Once you get your own criminal operation started - kind of like a clan or guild - you can start enlisting the newbies to do jobs for you"), the author gets into a sure-to-be-controversial mini-rant regarding a perceived lack of diversity: "What's wrong with online RPGs is content. Why are they all fantasy games?... Who decided that you couldn't make an online RPG about anything?"
Virtools Dev is a fantastic development toolset. They have an additional package in the form of their multiplayer package that is specifically geared towards MMO style games.
Unfortunately I know of no current MMO titles that use the software, but I work with Dev daily and can't recommend the toolset enough. Fantastic piece of software, so you may want to look into it.
Actually, something like that seems optimal for a GTA-style MMO game. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to choose a side, whether cop or criminal. Furthermore, you could have informants and cops on the take, so that not all the cops are good guys, and not all the criminals are bad guys, so everyone has to decide who they can and can't trust.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
The problem with imagining online versions of games with cool worlds is that the online version will always suffer (and if history is any guide, usually fatally) from the fact that 95% of players are lazy and can't be bothered to participate in them.
;)
Huh? I don't think it's a matter of being lazy, it's a matter of being bored. Just because someone doesn't want to put in the million mouse clicks to level up doesn't make them lazy, it just means they aren't obsessive compulsive.
The fact that Ultima Online, the MMORPG with perhaps the lowest-tech engine, survives and thrives is because it demands more from its players than just appreciative ooh-ing and aah-ing at the eye candy and content that the dev team has slaved to put together.
Do you think UO also survives because it was the first big MMORPG, and it had 10 titles before it to provide a fanbase? Ultima has been around for more than 20 years, it's no suprise their MMO is still alive.
Players are actually required to interact, transact, form social arrangements and the like, and are 'encouraged' to do so 'in-character' if for no other reason than the game mechanics make it easier to do that than to sit around an l33t-ch4t with yer h0m13z. At least, they make that relatively boring.
I didn't see anything in UO that was radically different than SWG or EverQuest.
One of the great things about GTA is the world that has been set up by the developers.
Aren't all single player games like that
Player behavior is guided much more subtlely and much more pervasively by the use of single-player storylines and rewards/penalties than it first seems.
Plenty of people I know, don't do any of the missions or follow the storylines, they just mindlessly blow stuff up and use the game as a sandbox.
GTA Online would, in fact, make a decent game initially, but (IMNSHO) there would need to be some carefully thought out mechanisms that would provide for the formation of (and motivation for) player-to-player social structures, both dyadic and multiple-party (partners and gangs).
People would form gangs on their own in GTA online, an in game mechanism would be nice but not needed. People would form them simply for protection and pooling resources.
I think a GTA-MMO could draw in the mainstream crowd that MMO developers are always looking for. They shouldn't think in generic RPG terms though. They should make it more of a sandbox type world where the players will make the content/storylines. Forget leveling, let people just go play. Focus on creating new places, cars, and weapons and let the players (gangs?) make the stories themselves
The more I think about it, the more I realize this really could work!
;-D "etc"
I know the immediate thought is that you have everybody just shooting up everything and each other, and it would be crazy anarchy, but the thing is, like all well-balanced MMORPGs you have to have consequences to your actions.
For example, you would still have police in the game, and in fact I would keep police as NPCs (though still give the option for player cops as well.) The idea here is that you DO NOT want to go to jail. You'd lose alot of what you have gained in the game (lose a level? lose inventory?). Perhaps the NPC cops would be stronger/smarter than in the single player GTA games. Perhaps weapons and ammo are limited. Or your aim and strength are something that levels up.
So then you can also play as a good guy and rise through those ranks. cop, deputy, sherriff, captain, etc, on up into SWAT, FBI, CIA, DEA...
In UO there are some forensics skills. You can examine a corpse and figure out who killed them. Imagine this kind of element in this game. Imagine incorporating the Wanted levels in a more lasting and accountable way. I would do away with the ability to make a wanted star go away just by touching a pickup. The idea is to make it more where you have to be careful about the crimes you commit.
Then also, you CAN have safe zones just by joining syndicates who own large areas of land. There would be no PKing in these areas, unless you infiltrated a rival syndicate's property.
anyways...