A quick layout of ideas I may want to use for narrowing down the principal game mechanics.

Note Dump#

Use the circles of design to differentiate how deep each of these designs go.

  • Primary Game Mechanics
  • Traversal, Combat, Social, Inventory, Market, Crafting, Equipment, Accessories, Living World.
  • MVP
    • 4 locations (city, town, camp)
    • 6 traversals (biomes: underground, city, forest, etc…)
    • 4 combat styles
    • 12 mobs
    • 20 loots
    • 20 craftables

Core Mechanics#

  • Player Control
    • yes Mouse and Keyboard input from the users.
    • possibly controller input from the users.
    • Need to elaborate on how these two would live side by side. Need to prototype a combat and interaction system in.
  • Principal Systems
    • Loot
    • Crafting
    • Combat Skills / Abilities
    • Player interaction (instanced mmorpg)

Not#

  • Hack and Slack combat.
  • Huge inventories with thousands of things you don’t need.
  • Raids
  • Dungeon crawler

Game Systems#

  • Communication and eavesdropping through greenspace.
    • If people are communicating, either with text or built in voip, people can eavsedrop. This may be more relevant for NPCs since there is no PVP.
  • Positional / Locked combat systems with collaborative movesets and action sequences. Tick based combat. (real time with timer to execute an attack, parry, dodge, etc…)
    • Attack, Parrry, Dodge (Self)
    • Parry or Attack a collaborators target.
    • Teaming a monster is extremely effective, not just stacking on damage, stuns, etc…
  • Movement / Position
    • Graph or grid. Perhaps just a grid for now for simplicity.

Instancing#

  • When players are in “towns” all players are limited to simple movement, positioning, and communication.
  • When a player leaves the town they leave into their own semi-instance of the world, where ghosts or imprints of other players can be seen, and somewhat interacted with if the player chooses. Parties can be forms in town or if you run in to eachother in the field. Players of similar renoun or skill, and who share language settings, are more likely to see eachother.
  • No player vs player
  • Only player vs environment and collaborative adventures.
  • Instances and player information is tracked on the server, but parties and groups are p2p with server validation on logic and positioning.

Crafting#

  • Combat relevance
    • Length of sword, range of bow, peirce of arrow.
    • Resiliance of armour, etc…

Extra Systems#

  • Living wildlife
    • Monsters and mobs are real in your instance, they have a lifecycle and you can overhunt / wipe out an area.
  • Weather
    • Realtime weather, visibility, wind, wetness, mud, impassibility, etc…

Fun#

  • Combat
    • Collaborative combinations. Always worth fighting alongside others, because difficulty scales down the more skilled people you have in your group.
  • Exploration
    • Intricacies of the weather system, dynamic wildlife, changes in the landscape.
  • Looting
    • Every drop is realistic and useful, nothing useless.
  • Crafting
    • Interesting things to craft, highly relevant to actual combat mechanics.