Most unique MMORPGs

[Bricker]

Any cool unique MMO RPG? Im looking for something different 99% of MMORPGs is so generic. Clear dungeoun - Kill boss - Level up - Get New Items over and over again.

 

[Norfleet]

Hmm, nope. The alternative is not really cooler. I mean, what's the alternative to this? Not clearing dungeons, not killing obsses, not levelling up, and not getting new itam? Which one of these do you want to turn off?

How would you like an MMO where the gameplay loop is to file paperwork all day so you can get more resources to enhance your paperwork-filing capabilities? I can tell you right now, this isn't any fun at all, and that's why I still play it, because I HATE FUN.

 

[whydoibother]

Hmm, nope. The alternative is not really cooler. I mean, what's the alternative to this? Not clearing dungeons, not killing obsses, not levelling up, and not getting new itam? Which one of these do you want to turn off?
How would you like an MMO where the gameplay loop is to file paperwork all day so you can get more resources to enhance your paperwork-filing capabilities? I can tell you right now, this isn't any fun at all, and that's why I still play it, because I HATE FUN.

Just make Rimworld Online. Instead of dungeons, raid other player towns. Instead of killing bosses, fight tribal confederacy wars of expansion. Instead of leveling up, recruit more dudes from prisoners. Instead of getting new item, build a new outpost.

 

[Norfleet]

Rimworld is a game that would translate very poorly to being an MMO because as a PvP game about accumulation, it would quickly become a spawncamp in which you get killed on arrival by the established playerbase. I have difficulty seeing how a persistent territory/base control game can have much of a future as an MMO.

 

[whydoibother]

Make some server wide democracy to vote on shit, so that every player matters (1 vote per "tribe"), and you look up newbies to invite them to your alliance for their votes, rather than slaughter them.
Make some developments only unlock at X population, easiest achieved by inviting other people to your alliance, etc. I am sure if I was paid to think about this for 3 days I'd come up with ways.

 

[Norfleet]

Make some server wide democracy to vote on shit, so that every player matters (1 vote per "tribe"), and you look up newbies to invite them to your alliance for their votes, rather than slaughter them.
Make some developments only unlock at X population, easiest achieved by inviting other people to your alliance, etc. I am sure if I was paid to think about this for 3 days I'd come up with ways.

And why would I want to use other people, who are unreliable, useless, disobedient shits when I can just spam more sockpuppet accounts to do the same job, while getting rid of the useless other players?

 

[whydoibother]

Why would I want to play with other people in an MMORPG when I could play solo?

Might want to look at yourself as to the reason why the genre went to shit, m8lad.
Other than that, having someone always logged in or whatever. Like I said, if I was a game designer paid to come up with this shit over the course of days and weeks, I am sure I would. As a wageslave occasionally looking at a forum while pretending to work, I really can't be arsed to methodically consider it.

 

[Norfleet]

Why would I want to play with other people in an MMORPG when I could play solo?

Might want to look at yourself as to the reason why the genre went to shit, m8lad.

The genre didn't go to shit, the people went to shit. The difference between MMOs of today and MUDs of yesterday is that due to catering to paying customers who thus cannto be subjected to the same levels of abuse, the modern MMO lacks any impact. This lack of impact brings in the worst mouthbreathers, who are then allowed to survive in this environment because, well, you can't let paying customers get ganked by a marauding band of PKers where all of the members are me.

Hell, just the definitional shift should summarize it. Remember when we had "PKers", and not "PvP"? There wasn't a "versus", there was just people like me, killing you. People were willing to accept this kind of thing back when they didn't have to pay for it, and games like this were few and far in between, so it was either git gud or cry trying. But nowadays, if someone takes too much of a beating, they won't pay for it and will just move onto the next game. This lack of stomach makes for shitty games.

This is quite evident in my play patterns:

1. The early days, when I actually found people I could tolerate and even embrace as worthwhile teammates.

2. The rise of mouthbreathers, around the time of Eternal September, when I first took to multiboxing.

3. The modern age of Decline.

 

[whydoibother]

In my gaming community it was "wolves" and "sheep", and I too was very much a wolf. However, I also understand that many of these games declined to the point where only starved wolfs would log in if all the sheep don't have anything to do while trying to dodge us. The game can't be too favorable to PKers, else there's nobody to PK. The thrill of organized PvP like a battleground is different to the thrill of zerging a populated zone, or ambushing a wandering newbie. The later was lost, the former was embraced, and now all the sheep larp as wolves in the instanced battlegrounds, separated form the grazing fields, while all the wolves play DOTA2 or Overwatch or whatever.

Anyways, I still think a Rimworld type game would make a good MMORPG. One where you control multiple pawns, not just one. Though it would need ways to set jobs and automate shit for when you aren't logged in, and one thats good enough so that you don't need to start over every day, losing it all while you sleep.

 

[Norfleet]

lf. However, I also understand that many of these games declined to the point where only starved wolfs would log in if all the sheep don't have anything to do while trying to dodge us. The game can't be too favorable to PKers, else there's nobody to PK.

Yup, and persistent games with territorial control are one of the strongest examples of entrenched advantage. Imagine being the guy who arrives late to a game of Civ with your one lousy primitive shitty vs. guys who have empires filled with tanks and planes and nukes. It would be a complete waste of time to play the game at that point.

The thrill of organized PvP like a battleground is different to the thrill of zerging a populated zone, or ambushing a wandering newbie. The later was lost, the former was embraced, and now all the sheep larp as wolves in the instanced battlegrounds, separated form the grazing fields, while all the wolves play DOTA2 or Overwatch or whatever.

Yup, and neither of these experiences is entirely satisfying. PvP constrained by battlegrounds and arenas fundamentally lacks free-association high-impact gameplay of old. In the old days, the quality of players was higher so it was more desirable to associate with the selected ones of your choice. In the new ones, factions are typically predefined by the setting of the game and so you're lumped in with a bunch of mouthbreathers, making the multiplayer that much less appealing. This is why you see the rise of the "solo MMO player" and increasing amounts of development effort aimed at catering to the people who want to solo. I fall into the category where I don't have any particular commitment to "soloing", but I also have a strong antipathy towards the mouthbreathing masses, and this has pushed me into being a multiboxer and increasingly see demands for having numbers of players as a demand for greater multiboxing. Having kids has helped reduce this impact, but once you start seeing the world in this way, you don't really go back. When you demand a group of 20 people for progress, I just see "how do I get me and my fambly to multibox that", because there sure as fuck ain't no way to find 20 people who aren't mentally retarded that will show up on demand.

Anyways, I still think a Rimworld type game would make a good MMORPG.

A setting like that is largely unexplored, but also a real challenge to design for: This is, in essence, the kind of dog-eat-dog setting that demands free-association and open PK. I won't even say PvP, because PvP is a watered down concept of what was simply PKing. There's no versus, there is only killing. The most recent attempt at this kind of setting in an MMO was Failout 76, and that went about as well as I could have expected. This is basically your worst case scenario for game as far as the entrenched advantage situation is concerned.

Personally, if I wanted to create a game with a setting of this kind of flavor, which is basically any kind of wild lawless frontier where a player makes his own way in a world that's dog-eat-dog, I'd probably put it in space. Why space? Because the only way to have new players that can even feasibly stand a chance in a world where stuff gets increasingly taken over by those who came first is for there to be a nigh infinite amount of probably-procedurally-generated territory so that the newbies can always be sent West. In any kind of terrestrial environment, though, you quickly run out of West and your players get ganked by the Chinese.

It's a tough set of challenges to work out in order to create a game that is sustainable in the long term as an MMO.

One where you control multiple pawns, not just one.

So, multiboxing as central to gameplay.

Though it would need ways to set jobs and automate shit for when you aren't logged in, and one thats good enough so that you don't need to start over every day, losing it all while you sleep.

Ah, yes, the days of insomnia games. I used to be a hated contender in those because I never fucking sleep.

 

[whydoibother]

multiboxing

I meant a single account controlling more than one character. Like you control a party in a cRPG, or an army in an RTS. And like you control a faction in Rimworld.
You start with 6 random generated guys, pick which 3 live and which 3 die, and crash land. You loot your ship and corpses, and go look for allies or where to set up camp.
Because adding new guys to the faction requires either recruiting another player, or capturing their dudes, or some pregnancy/children system, it is just cheaper and faster to find new arrivals and invite them. Like a guild recruits new members, you recruit new players into your faction, for strength in numbers. Especially if said numbers are used for voting on some server wide democracy, voting on different game modifiers or faction stuff or whatever, like banning cannibalism (no HP gained from eating human meat), banning drugs (can't trade them on auction house), etc.

insomnia games

For me, it is setting the alarm for 3AM so I can wake up when my spaceship army is done with its attack in that one browser game I played, and I can send it to a second raid.
But realistically, if there is good automation and jobs system, and if you have 20-30 players in your faction, and at least a couple are online, and you use turrets/walls, they should be able to somewhat defend against all but the most determined and organized zergs. If not, you have a former strong faction become a refugee faction, they take their toons and what resources they have to a third party faction, and strike back, etc emergent gameplay that I am specifically after.

 

[ADL]

Try the demo

 

[Reinhardt]

I just want new Atlantica Online.

 

[Syl]

insomnia games

For me, it is setting the alarm for 3AM so I can wake up when my spaceship army is done with its attack in that one browser game I played, and I can send it to a second raid.

OGame?

 

[Rahdulan]

Any cool unique MMO RPG? Im looking for something different 99% of MMORPGs is so generic. Clear dungeoun - Kill boss - Level up - Get New Items over and over again.

Well, you have titles like A Tale in the Desert, but most of the really interesting ones are dead. I remember SEED was cool, for example. On a more conventional side of things, but still doing their own take on it, you have Wurm Online and Chronicles of Spellborn which is apparently now getting a private server as well. What I noticed is these games don't tend to really last or become as acclaimed because they require a much greater community involvement. EVE Online kinda gets away with it because you can be that miner dude who does nothing but automate shit and rake in the money, but if you want to be a mover and shaker you need to play the game of politics. Most just want to log in, do their dungeons to get loot and log out.

 

[Black]

I think there are some private Ultima Online servers/shards still running but I can't think of anything new that's unique.
Guild Wars 1 is still up but since barely anyone still plays it the thing that made it unique, pvp, is dead.

 

[PapaPetro]

DDO was great (until it wasn't).
The True Reincarnation (TR) mechanic was a unique loop that cycled players back through old content once they hit cap; each time they were a little cumulatively stronger with a Past Life added (PL) and with more twink gear from their last TR. So you always had vets pubbing with noobs doing all the content; rather than them just grinding it out at end-game content hell. Getting all the TR past lives and getting the Completionist feat was a big deal in the community.
I haven't seen another MMO replicate this that I can think of. Great mechanic that kept players engaged and trying new builds without having to roll alts.

 

[Norfleet]

For me, it is setting the alarm for 3AM so I can wake up when my spaceship army is done with its attack in that one browser game I played, and I can send it to a second raid.
But realistically, if there is good automation and jobs system, and if you have 20-30 players in your faction, and at least a couple are online, and you use turrets/walls, they should be able to somewhat defend against all but the most determined and organized zergs. If not, you have a former strong faction become a refugee faction, they take their toons and what resources they have to a third party faction, and strike back, etc emergent gameplay that I am specifically after.

If you're going to leave such an obvious weakness, what's the point in even bothering?

Our group took this to an extreme, we had a special infrastructure and CnC setup, that tracked all this information and had someone constantly on watch for any incoming attack on any member or any enemy movement. We called it NORAD. It DID hold off the most determined and organized Zergs, because what's the point of even having a defense if all anyone has to do to breach it is to be a determined and organized Zerg?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Unique? I can't promise no grinding.

Spoiler

 

[thesheeep]

What about Wakfu? Weird turn-based anime MMO. Didn't find it very good, but possibly unique.

 

[laclongquan]

Or you can just hunt for item/material, cooking/crafting, and running around watching scenery.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Or you can just hunt for item/material, cooking/crafting, and running around watching scenery.

I did this esp in Aion. Made LordToadstool. Ran around in boxer shorts and a hate that helped locate herbs and essence and just gathered crap. You got xp and i made it to lvl 40 before certain materials said i had to be higher level. I was blocked so i went tocrafting then quite from boredom. Now NCsoft changed the older game and i have alts registered as "XGJDRVJD147@&DHR46:5" as names for example. Don't care. I seem to fall asleep playing any mmo these days. Literally snorig zzzzzzzz as i die.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Space Station 13. It has open pking going on, but it solves the usual problems in two ways. First, entrenchment isn't an issue because because the rounds only last around a couple hours tops. Second, the everyone becoming a murderhobo issue is solved by having antagonist roles be secretly assigned each round.

 

[Norfleet]

It's also not really very "MMO", more of an online multiplayer parlor game. Also, didn't it implode in a fit of drama at some point?

 

[Damned Registrations]

I dunno it's history, but there's about a half dozen public servers now. It's not hugely popular since it's super niche as a concept and a gigantic pain in the ass to play. As for being 'MMO' it's certainly closer to something like old MUDs, without the persistence. It's got much more detailed crafting and profession mechanics than any MMO though, which is hilarious in combination with it's super janky UI. You can breed lemons that are full of gasoline (or pretty much any chemical in any proportion you can think of) but you'll also probably light yourself on fire by accident if you try to light a cigarette, or throw some expensive equipment in a blender because you forgot to toggle hands.