Adventure MMORPG

[stuh505]

this is something I'd love to see.

there are plenty of RPG mmorpg's...of course they all rely on killing monsters and quest solving....but I think it would be great if there were some that focused around puzzle solving.Ã,  They could still incorporate fighting to encourage teammates to play together (to bump heads together over the puzzles as well as work together to defeat monsters).Ã,  Instead of getting XP from killing you could get XP from solving puzzles.

The game could have one (or a few) MAJOR puzzles/quests...that would kind of be sitting in the background and perhaps never be completable, or only be completable after a bunch of expansions or something, and they could keep adding new puzzles to the game world as time went on...

edit: just noticed the other similar post

[LGM]

They tried this idea. It was called Uru. It didn't work.

[MrColossal]

I don't think it didn't work more that it was cancelled. Uru never got to the online part of it's life. There my have been a beta but it was never fully released.

It would have to be a very interesting story to keep me playing a never ending adventure game and to write that many puzzles, ho-boy! No thanks.

[Scummbuddy]

If they made it World of Warcraft, with puzzles, it might work very well.

oooo "Spheres of Starcraft" ~~Raynor uses zerglings gaping jaws to make hole in door to walk through.~~

[stuh505]

Yeah, I have Uru...it was not a very good game.  The puzzles were too hard...and the environment was not very immersive, it had good graphics whoopee but that doesn't make the game.  And also, it never even went online to my knowledge.

It could be done either using some kind of a cartoonish 3d fantasy world like WoW...or it could even be in the form of a 2D view like KQ.  Why not.

[MillsJROSS]

In the end, it's kind of hard to think of how something like this would work effectively, and keep people playing. The thing about adventure games, versus an RPG, is an RPG is based a lot on how many things you do. Where an adventure game, there is usually a linear or near enough, puzzle arrangment, and it doesn't matter if you wait a week to solve a puzzle or a minute. I'm sure all of us have experienced moment, where we were away from our game, and suddenly we thought of a solution, even though we were no where close to our computer.  RPG's however, if you need to take down someone, you play and hone your skills or explore.

If an adventure game were this big, it would be daunting. And I'm afraid, many people would be scared off. The real question is, how would allowing other people to play an adventure game at the same time really help an adventure game? There would have to be some big twist or ingenious idea that would captivate our interests, and make it so we must either rely or be against those playing with us.

In making something like this, one would wonder, let's say there is a puzzle, if I solve it, does the puzzle reset itself and allow other people to play? Or is it just solved by me, and by me only. If the first one is true, than what's the point in having more than one person? If the second one is true, then making that many puzzles would not only be dautning to the gamer, but also the creater.

We also have to consider what the point is in an adventure game, and that is mostly that it's plot driven. And with all good plots, you have a beginning where we set up some conflict and get to know the world/characters, the middle where we do things as the conflict usually builds, and the end where we resolve said conflict. How would we use this structure, which is what most adventure games use, to make a game? Because I wouldn't want to play an adventure game that had no end.  The obvious answer would be to make many short mini-adventures that encompass a complete plot, and give everyone playing some sense of completeness. Which also allows for expansions, as already mentioned.

When you get down to it though, the real basic question is how do you interact with several other people in an adventure game? Is one game open to everyone, or do you play with three other people at a time, and play different characters. If this is so, are your puzzles dependant on all characters? It's not really plausably that they are, because everyone plays at a different pace, and to be waiting for one person to solve some puzzle would slow down game play considerably. Yet, you need in some way make it clear that you need to interact with other people.  Because this is the sole reason for making this game. There has to be some benefit about playing an adventure game with other people, otherwise, what's the point? The only thing I can think of at the time, is that it might be similar to an RPG in that you can kill people, but you must kill people with puzzle logic. Whether this would work or not, who know? It would be hell to plan, though.

Allright, I'm done rambling.

-MillsJROSS

[scotch]

Do you think adventure puzzles could be added fast enough? Ã, Many RPG players are content to bash the same handful of monsters over and over for XP and trade, the developers can add content at a leisurely pace, but adventure puzzles take time to design, make art for and script, more than RPG quests. Ã, Also when one person solves a puzzle, that's it, they can spoil it for everyone else. Ã, This happens in Kingdom of Loathing, there are a lot of inventory and riddle based puzzle quests, when you finish them, the game starts to become boring, just making money and bashing monsters, and it is easy to find the solutions to the puzzles that are there. Ã, The incentive to cheat comes from the fact that there are other people to compete with.

I can envisage a graphical adventure MUD type thing, with a regular group of users that know each other well, and some of whom are involved in developing adventures for each other, the social aspect keeps people coming back. Ã, But MMORPGs are too big, anonymous and competitive, Ã, the adventures would be of a lower quality than something that isn't designed in a hurry, and what is really gained by having a load of other people in the world, except more people to brag to about the 1337 items you've found? Ã, You can only really organize puzzle solving with a few other people at a time, so I think a small scale set up would work just as well, from a gameplay standpoint.

I have not played many online RPGs, perhaps I do not know what I am talking about.

[MrColossal]

Also: When playing an online RPG or FPS you are constantly active... 100% of your time [unless it's running from place to place in StarWars Galaxies] is spent doing something, in adventure games there are sometimes long spans of time spent thinking of how to get past a puzzle or looking at inventory objects seeing what could be useful...

I'm not going to spend 30$ a month on that.

[Kinoko]

I think a much, MUCH better idea (and do-able) would be to simply create self contained games along the lines of perhaps a Cruise for a Corpse, or Laura Bow style game, that is the online equivalent of a murder mystery board game type... thing.

You could organise with a bunch of friends (or maybe search for people online at any given time who are waiting for people to join in on a game - that would only work if the concept became VERY popular) to start the game simultaneously (the game waits for all involved to join), you all get to be a certain character perhaps and then the game could play pretty much like normal. The exceptions being that you could have an input system so you could talk to each other when in the same room (or maybe if you get a phone or something you could converse between rooms), and that some puzzles need multiple people to solve them perhaps, or that certain NPCs will only give certain pieces of info to certain characters so you need teamwork, or...

Well, I could go on and on, but I'd personally LOVE to play adventure games like this.

[Kweepa]

Yes, that sounds pretty good!

[SSH]

Maybe you could have a game where each character is trying to murder some NPC who wanders around the game. You can only kill him when no-one else is in the room. You can make agreements with others to help you kill the guy, but no-one can ever be sure whether another person did actually do the deed. You could lock doors, etc to aid being on your won with the guy, or your accomplice could guard the door. You could also have Double Jeapoardy and false imprisonment: so everyone could gang up on one person to get them convicteed even if they didn't do it, or someone could be found innocent and yet did do it, and so can then admit they did do it and not be prosecuted...

[Mr Jake]

Maybe you could have a game where each character is trying to murder some NPC who wanders around the game. You can only kill him when no-one else is in the room. You can make agreements with others to help you kill the guy, but no-one can ever be sure whether another person did actually do the deed. You could lock doors, etc to aid being on your won with the guy, or your accomplice could guard the door. You could also have Double Jeapoardy and false imprisonment: so everyone could gang up on one person to get them convicteed even if they didn't do it, or someone could be found innocent and yet did do it, and so can then admit they did do it and not be prosecuted...

Kinda like "The Ship" - its a Halflife mod which the basics of this (what you described) I think they are working on a better more detailed version, weather it will be MMO or just multiplayer I dunno.

[scotch]

Yeah SSH's idea sounds almost exactly like the ship, which a few of us played once.  It wasn't as good as it sounds, but then that was mostly an FPS, not much of an adventure.
Kinoko's idea is more or less what most people have decided is the more workable way of making online adventures, when the topic comes up.  They really do need to be small numbers of players, and small, one session games.  I might look at if it's feasible to make a framework for this kind of game in AGS.  The barrier for people trying this has always been the complexity of doing the networking.

[Helm]

AGS is structured around the actions of one-user input. A Wait(); command only works for one user/computer. Imagine one character interacting with something, in another room, and your character getting stuck in a Wait, while his animation plays out. Scripting around the way ags is thought out would be a task only for the most daring. And in the event that something like say, Gobliiins ( which lends very well to the multiple person at the same time adventure game idea ) could be scripted, I am not sure there is an audience for this sort of thing anyway. If someone really wants, do something like Stickmen by DGM, (only one room, 2 or 3 puzzles) only for two players at the same time, and document the difficulties in making the project for future reference.

[Babar]

Ever heard of a game called "Hodge and Podge"? MMOADVs (hehe...new term) could be made like that, however, instead of the board games and such, there could be adventure puzzles. Like the player knows that a certain item can be gotten only from a certain area. When they get there, they would be competing against the other players in a "treasure hunt" sort of thing, solving puzzles to get to the next puzzle, to finally get the needed inventory item. Then in some other areas the player would have to solve puzzles on their own to advance.
There could even be certain "Spy vs. Spy" areas where one player could sabotage numerous others.
Also, the following through the story would not really be necessary. A player could achieve a "top position" without solving the game, by acquiring many items, or something. People may even be able to create their own puzzles, or the creators could randomly assign "problems" to certain characters that need solving (either by the character themselves, or a suitably rewarded other player).
Wasn't there a multiplayer adventure in the works? I seem to remember a thread in the Popular threads section.

[Helm]

I guess the point would be for the players to collaborate instead of trying to work against each other in a multiplayer adventure game? Wouldn't that be a refreshing change, to be more interested in achieving the goals together, and enjoying the game instead of trying to be in the 'top position' for hoarding items?

[Babar]

Come on baby take a ride with me
I'm up from indiana down to tennessee
Everything is cool as can be in a peaceful world

Hey yeah
Hey yeah
Hey yeah

Ahem... yeah. That is a good idea, Helm, but how exactly would players collaborate? Would it be "Lost Vikings" style, with different players having different powers, all of which are needed to solve certain puzzles? The problem with that is that it doesn't really take 3 people to control 3 characters to solve 1 puzzle. It could be done with 1 person, who has got a certain idea. Also, wouldn't the point of being "Massively multiplayer" mean that there has to be SOME competition (even if it is within "groups" of people who are helping each other)?

[Helm]

I was not talking about a massively multiplayer adventure game, because I think that is a silly idea. To be completely clear, I have no interest in massively multiplayer games whatsoever, and personally I don't think the adventure game genre lends itself well to such nameless interaction between competitively minded people.

As I thought was perfectly clear, I was following up on the other thread of this conversation, started by Kinoko, where the discussion is about two or three (or anyway, a small group of) people collaborating on solving a compact game. I was attempting to adress scotch's comment about such games in AGS specifically, by explaining how difficult it would be to script something like that due to how AGS is fundamentally designed.

As to how players would collaborate in the stricter environment I was suggesting, yes, like Lost Vikings or the just mentioned Gobliiins. Select characters can do select things, timing, distraction puzzles, etc etc.  And the fact that it also can be done by one person, 'who has got a certain idea' (sic) , frantically clicking on other characters trying to get the timing right to solve a puzzle, doesn't negate the enjoyment of three different people synchronizing to get a task done. It is a concept not explored a lot in video games, sadly.

[stuh505]

massively multiplayer could still work if it were done like Tribes...where there are central towns in which you can see everyone, which you use to find people to party up with, but then when you go off to accept a quest or something, you dont see the people outside of your party and their actions dont affect your party's quest.

also it could allow for new kinds of puzzles, which require more than 1 person to solve

[scotch]

That's true, although I think the self contained adventures you do in small groups are the fun part, the massively multiplayer element is just a little extra, and considering how much it costs to run a MMO server setup, compared to the small games which people could run on their home connections the purely group based games seem to make more sense.

Helm, blocking commands would not work too well for multiplayer, true, but you don't have to use them if you don't want to.