Hi everyone,

I've been very interested in the progress of MMORPGs for a while, though I've never had enough free time to really get "in" to any of them deeply. It's always bugged me that these games are less like giant virtual worlds with lives of their own, and are more like a whole bunch of single- and mulit-player quests scattered on a very big playing field. The games either consist of grinding to gain levels (which seems pointless and unrealistic in a virtual "world") or doing the same sequence of quests/dungeons/raids that every other player does (which can be fun for well designed quests, but breaks the immersion because the quests are always the same and have no impact on the game world -- how many times can someone find the "long lost sword of kill everything" or defeat the "undefeatable god of darkness" or whatnot). Epic world "events" are of course neat, but are rare because they require so many resources to plan and pull off. And of course, the servers are always populated by people who are more interested in advancing their character in the game than they are in exploring and playing a role in a virtual world.

So I've been musing about what *I* would want in a virtual online world for a while. It should be more realistic, more dynamic, more vast. Content should be emergent rather than pre-scripted or "automatically generated" -- and it should be unique; no instancing or multiple copies of ancient items of which there should be only one. NPCs should play an active role in the emergent plot, each acting like it has its own life and goals. Advancement should be about your character growing and becoming unique rather than about reaching a certain number of levels. Your success in the game should be about how intelligently you play your character, not how many hours of gameplay you get in per day. It should be accessible even to the most casual gamers! I even think such "radical" thoughts as permadeath and characters-always-in-world (even when you're not playing), if done carefully, would lead to a much more immersive and interesting game.

A lot of people seem to think "realistic" is equal to "not-fun," or that "automaticly generated" or "emergent" means "colorless" or "repetitive." But I think that people only think this because of some really bad attempts at "realistic" or "automatically generated" gameplay in the past. I think if done correctly, these ideas could really work, and could revolutionize the concept of MMORPGs! Implementing these things correctly involves a huge number of challenges to be overcome, but I still think it is very doable.

Anyway... I have tons of thoughts about this and could definitely fill up a few threads with my musings, but I won't put it all here ... needless to say, it seems that the project-wish team is looking into some things that are right up my alley! It's unfortunate that I don't have enough free time to contribute much to a project like this, because I would love to help develop it. Oh well. For now I'll just hang out in the forums and contribute to the discussion at least.

But how did I find project wish? Well, every once in a while I just search around the web to see if anyone is discussing the same kinds of things I'm interested in ... or more importantly ... if anyone is actually working to *implement* some of these ideas in a real game. I ran across someone mentioning the game "Wish" in a post from 2004, and went off to find more information about it. I found a site describing their concept for "Live Content" and was really excited, until I read that the project was canceled (due to lack of interest in the beta? what the hell?) ... oh well. Anyway, I found the wikipedia entry for it, and it pointed me here, and now here I am!

A few other projects that I have my eyes on lately, because they seem to be along the same lines of "next generation" MMORPG emergent gameworlds, or more realistic gameplay ideas, are Online Alchemy, Atriarch, and Genesis. Not much to show yet, but lots of big ideas!

GLAD you found us Penguin! That sounds great , I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts. And Welcome (again ) !

Welcome to project wish. I think you have found the right place. Hope to see some of your ideas on the forums. Its been pretty active here for a while which is nice so don't shy away.

It's always nice to see a new face here, so hello there

Hello and welcome to PW forums.

We are a friendly bunch and like to hear new ideas (even old ideas are welcome for that matter).

Hi and welcome to the PW community! We hope you continue sharing your ideas.

Thanks for the suggestions, we want to make the best game possible, but will most likely have to pick and choose the best ideas, rather than do them all. We will, however, use all possible avenues to try and get all the good ideas into the game. We have made it this far by trying to be wise as to what we focus on and when, and so far it has been working. This does not mean, however, that we know it all, so please keep contributing ideas.

Also, thanks for those links, I was aware of 2 of them, but not all 3. I just revamped our links section here, so take a peek and see what else I am missing. I will be adding more to those soon (more even today).

About the quest system, you are right. We do need to be working on such things early in development to ensure their balance and refinement. We do have many ideas internally that are not out on the public forums, and that is for a reason. Although we are very open and share a lot of information, we do want to be wise and not release all the best stuff, so as to ensure the uniqueness of many of the features. That being said, I will echo Pandra and point out that we have years to go. We are currently working toward an alpha 1 milestone. Once we hit that, you will see more gameplay elements hit the forums (even more than there is now).

Also, about Wish, you are correct. We were all amazed at its cancelation. The reason wasnt because of lack of interest per se, but lack of projected interest from a financial standpoint.
Anyways, check this out to find out more about Wish:
http://www.colossalstudios.com/wish/