Meta-PvP: A Strength of Victory System

I’ve been toying with the idea of a PvP MMO game that doesn’t involve players fighting one another directly.

The game would consist missions that players can undertake to combat other player factions or NPC factions. Missions could be initiated by players who run factions or NPCs. Each mission would involve a scenario or a set of scenarios where a player (and perhaps a few NPCs under his control to some extent) or group of players fights a group of NPCs of the opposing faction while trying to accomplish various objectives. There would be multiple scenario types including “deathmatch”, escort, protect the item, obtain the item, etc. Certain numbers of each type of scenario would need to be completed within a certain time-frame to complete a faction-wide mission—for example, to take a city/town/hamlet/farm. As the sides complete scenarios, they are awarded points based on their performance in the scenarios. The side that obtains the highest score accomplishes their goal, be it defending or attacking.

Nowhere in this system are players required to lose a battle they participate in. The system actually works perfectly fine if both sides win every single encounter in which players take part. As long as the NPC AIs are good—and they might not have to be much better than Darkfall NPC AI with some added behaviorlets—players can enjoy playing through challenging content and succeeding without being teabagged by 12-year-olds while accomplishing broader, world-changing objectives.

Can a system like this allow people to have their dynamic world cake and eat it too without it being a newb-repelling niche experience? Could such a system bring dynamic world, sandbox PvP to the masses?

Discarded Mutants: Design Considerations

On further review, this idea doesn’t work very well as an MMO. The spirit of the game would be compromised by min-maxing competitively against other players and there are significant issues with what happens to player-owned assets when they log off. The game would be far more immersive in a single-player mode with an (perhaps mostly co-op) online multiplayer mode.

Here are some fairly broad design considerations I’ve derived from the concept:

No world map. If you chose an intelligent mutant, you can make a map if you can find the materials to do so—ink and paper may be quite difficult to find, but carving into tree-bark might work. The quality of the cartography depends on how perceptive and intelligent your mutant is.

Combat doesn’t have to be complicated. This game is about survival, not war. There needs to be enough of a combat engine to allow the player to defend himself and hunt for live game if need be. No vertical growth is necessary, though it may be nice to have. Most mutants won’t last very long. This game is more about experimentation than it is about building up an uber character.

A basic social model will be sufficient. The mutant needs to be able to express some simple sentiments. “Go here”, “kill this”, “I don’t have a weapon”, “I’m friendly”, “leave me alone or I’ll throttle you.” The chance of two mutants being capable of spoken communication and actually speaking the same language is infinitesimal, so we don’t have to worry about RPG dialog conventions.

Most gameplay is interaction with the terrain and environmental features—not necessarily NPCs; a dynamic and living world is the focus.

There will be story, but there won’t be exposition. The player, in search of food and water or maybe just to mess around, will stumble upon ruins of lost civilizations. Through ruin exploration, the player can implicitly learn about how the civilization was structured and what led to its downfall.

Interface will be a big challenge. If the interface is poor, all the interactive world systems in the world won’t save the game from floundering in uselessness and unplayability. This point is as important as most of the design points in the game, because without it the game cannot even limp towards success.

Game Concept: Discarded Mutants

Humanity has expanded into space and met with thousands of alien races among the myriad solar systems. Eugenics and cybernetics have become vital to the success of the human race. The only way they can hope to compete with the physical power or intellectual acuity of the alien races. Hybridization between human and other species and races also is common among the denizens of the colonized planets.

But there is a great risk to messing with the building blocks of life without fully understanding the possible consequences. Millions of creatures have been created which not even the forsaken gods would wish to bear witness to. When the creator of such an abominations realizes what he has created, he can risk trying to enslave his creation, but more often than not the monstrosity is sent to one of the abandoned worlds. Life is precious, and though eugenics is the order of the day, with the new capabilities that unravels come greater responsibilities. He who brings a being to life cannot kill it simply because it is unsatisfactory—after all, human beings would have been destroyed long ago if extraterrestrials had not had a similar law.

The player takes on the character of one of these outcast mutants right after its memory has been whiped and it has been deposited naked on a planet's surface. The world that the mutants inhabits is an ancient world where great civilizations once ruled—but now it is in complete ruins, desolated by the ravages of the exiled monstrosities. In the beginning of the game, the world is completely free and open and the player can do any crime free of the game stopping him. Players can also change the environment by digging into the ground, knocking down walls, and other actions made available by different items found in the ruins.

The primary goal for the player is survival. Permanent death is a central mechanic. Players are responsible for sustaining their character. That means characters become hungry and thirsty. They must find food to keep themselves strong and water to stay alive. Depending on the mutations the character has, they may need more or less food and water—or they may be able to consume metal, plastics, stone, dirt, or they may be able to use photosynthesis (but then they must find a light source if they’re indoors for extended periods of time). Players also need to deal with the other mutants that they encounter—this means either fighting or engaging in diplomacy.

That’s a basic outline of the idea behind a game I’d like to design. I’m going to make posts discussing the mechanics needed to make such a game possible as I think more about it. If a game similar to this has been done before, I’d love to know about it.