Outline

[Dustie]

Design Goals and Focus
The One Rule "Let me play the game with my friends." -- (Isn't that why we play MMOs?)
The Ideal Purge Game

Outline

I. World

• A. Living World vs Wargame
  B. Best Setting
  C. NPCs and AI
  D. Player Content
  E. "Safe Zones"
  F. Instancing
  G. Massiveness
  H. Weather
  • 1. X hundred people in the same area?
    2. Limitations

II. Teams, Guilds, and Groups

• A. Guild based vs Faction based
  B. Fixed teams
  C. Dynamic Teams
  D. Balance
  E. Group Play
  • 1. Supporting the group gamer
    2. Supporting the solo gamer
    3. Supporting different sized groups (2 people? 6 people? 48 people?)
  F. Teams
  G. Heroes
  

III. Locomotion

• A. Player transportation
  B. Player
  C. Mounts
  D. Vehicles
  E. Balance different movement capabilities
  F. Speed and Kiting
  G. Snares, Roots, Freezes
  H. Mezzes
  I. Balance
  J. Teleporting
  K. Flying
  

IV. Combat and Restoration

• A. To Heal or not to Heal
  B. Balance and Balance (i.e. shields or POBS style balance)
  C. AoE
  D. Friendly fire as a game pitfall.

V. Economy

• A. Tied to PvP
  B. Balanced
  C. Dynamic

VI. Progression

• A. Skills
  B. Levels
  C. Abilities
  D. Range of choices

VII. Death

• A. Bind Rushing Zerging
  B. Bind Points
  C. Penalty
  D. Value of Kill vs Rate of Killing

VIII. Gear

IX. Accessibility

• A. High price of admission to end game
  B. Accessibility for the non hard core folk
  • 1. Supporting the 8-hour-a-day gamer
    2. Supporting the 30-minutes-per-sitting gamer.
  C. Grind Control

X. Pitfalls from past games

• A. Speed imbalances ala POBS
  B. Massive modifiers ala SWG commandos, doctors
  C. Chain mez, roots, etc
  D. Empty Player Cities ala SWG
  E. Pin hole sized warping ala EVE
  F. Repetitive Grind ala POBS port grinding, WoW faction grind
  G. Handle Instancing Well (if any)
  H. Non-meaningful or extended Downtime
  I.Lack of friendly fire.
  J.Classes
  K. Gear overload
  L. Getting the Death Penalty Right
  

XI. Best features of past games

• A. SWG Player Built Stuctures
  B. WoW UI
  C. Guild Vaults and Customizable Guild Controls
  D. Planetside Griefing System
  E. AoE Handling
  F. Public Quests
  G. Play Control
  H. Z axis EQish
  I. Gear with unique properties
  J. Strategy
  K. Skill and gear based abilities rather then set classes (don't let the game fall apart since you can't find a healer)
  L. Cross Realm/Team Comms
  M. Community
  N. Item Loot and heart pounding
  O. Battle Length (this could be contentious)
  P. Being scared/horror, EQ zones where you waited until day break to run through

XII. Variety of things to do

XIII Misc (come up with a name)

• A. Marketing
  • 1. Reason for buying this game vs. the game next to it
    2. We've all been fooled before!
  B. Life Cycle
  • 1. Rate of Expansion release
    2. Addition of new content
    3. Irrelevancy of old content. (can we keep old content relavant?)
  C. MMO accountability