A Wild West mmorog would never work.

[Ringo]

Bah, screw 'phat lewt'. I'm sure you could come up with some other carrot, if people require that to have fun (maybe some form of fame or infamy or something).

Bounties ...

If I were to design a Wild West MMO it wouldn't be an RPG, it would be an FPS with some RPG elements (quests, factions, guilds/groups, building towns, maybe some PvE, etc) - not just WoW in the wild west.

Yeah, a hybrid is the way to go. This is one time where twitch gaming would be key.

[Lysandor]

Yeah, being the "fastest gun alive" because you won the roll for a +400 Holster would be laaaaaaaame.

[Diallu]

So lets start a dev team. Graffe L.L.C. Will get sony to pony up the money and microsoft to publish. Then we really can win the MMO Game. Having people pay us.

[Raven]

Call of Duty = Call of the West = /drool

But that wouldn't be a mmorpg.

[FilanFyretracker]

Planetside proved that the MMOFPS can work, PS however made several bad decisions which in the end has caused it problems(Read: BFRs).

[Goladus]

Wouldn't necessarily be an MMOFPS either. FPSs and RPGs are converging anyway.

MMORPG combat is typically 3-D real-time combat with more emphasis on strategic play than twitch play. But MMORPGs have much more of a twitch component than most any other RPG I know of (console or computer).

In fact, I'd argue that the combat engine is one of the lesser aspects in terms of defining Genre.

What makes an MMO and MMORPG?

1. Character growth and development. The "Role" in "Roleplaying."

You have to be able to permanently improve somehow. Whether this is by item acquisition, skill tree progression, or experience/levels, or some other way is not important.

2. A varied and important background context that you can interact with in a meaningful but non-combat manner.

You have to have a persistent world that is worth exploring and interacting with. It can't just be a battleground, and it DEFINITELY can't just be an abstract series of levels or maps. WoW-style instancing is as far as that sort of thing should go and still be an MMORPG.

[Alikat Astrae]

Because players love the l3wt, and there's only so much phat l3wt that can be acquired in a semi realistic Old West setting.

Still, a well done Wild West mmorpg could be intensely fun, if only for a short time.

Dollars. Grazing rights for your cattle (or sheep if you're a dirty dirty sheepherder). Water rights. Land. Gold, silver, and other precious commodities. Railroads. Every gun ever seen in a Western, from a Springfield squirrel rifle through the Colt six-shooter through the Henry rifle through the Gatling gun, all the way up to the cannon loaded with grapeshot or even a mortar. Horses. Cattle and sheep. Crops. Women. Whisky and beer.

All of the above is phat lewt in a Western setting.

[Ventilee]

I think the only way to do a WW MMO right would be to basically make it EvE in a wild west setting.

The genre doesn't really lend itself to classes, so there would have to be an open-ended skill system. I would like it if there were many different skills to specialize in, gunnery, horsemanship, ranching, farming, bankmanship, medical skills, the list can go on.

Have an area that's owned and operated by the government, then have the real wild west which is controlled by gangs. The government area has slim pickings for money making oppurtunities, but it is fairly safe from getting yourself in a pvp fight. In this area there are basic shops, basic doctors, etc. You'll be able to mine in the public mines for some basic cres, buy and sell stuff at the market, create weapons and clothes(different clothes will have different defensive properties). Also, there will be low-level outlaws hanging out by the train tracks for you to kill for bounty money.

As you venture farther out from the government owned area you get into the lawless portions of the world. Here you will be able to build player owned towns, which could be attackable and defendable, able to find mines with really rare ores, higher bounty bandits etc.

But the real draw should be the PvP, IMO. Gangs will be your basic guilds(or corporations), with coalitions being the equivalent of alliances. There should definitely be something to fight for out in the lawless regions, a reason players want to own it.

As for how combat works, the best idea I have is for it to be FPS based with skills giving you minor boosts in effectiveness, so that way it will still be fair enough for the older and the younger players.

[Zedd]

Give Natives awesome AE nature calling powahs so they can repeatedly pwn whitey and I"ll play.

ZZ

[Simulacrum]

Make it a cross between Planetside and SW:G and you could have a good game. Player run cities would be great. Set-up some random mines for tradeskills, and have ammo and guns be what you need to collect. Have the rest be more pvp based than pve and you have a profitable game I bet.

Old SWG, before the combat upgrade. Thats what I was thinking, too.

[Sanlear]

Outside of the World of Darkness MMO, this is the genre I would love to see made into a MMO the most. There are so many possibilities.

[Lascaris]

Allowed 'races' & professions (which determine limits factions to some extent):
American - Soldier (US army), doctor, farmer, rancher, gambler, trapper, explorer, buffalo hunter
Native American - Warrior, US army scout, hunter, shaman
Canadian - Trapper, mountie, rancher, doctor
European - Soldier (interventionist, i.e. Maximillian or 54/40), doctor, rancher, gambler, explorer
Mexican - Soldier (Mexican), insurgent (Juarez or Villa for example), farmer, rancher
Half breed - US army scout, trapper, explorer, Warrior, rancher, gambler

Could have factions with built in mechanisms to force conflicts, for example American buffalo hunters kill buffaloes which Native Americans need nearby to allow the construction of villages. This would inspire the Native Americans to hunt the buffalo hunters.

Ideas out my ass in 2 minutes but there's a zillion things you could do with this genre.

[Gnizmo]

A class system really wouldn't work. A lot of those would be pure support which sucks as a class. A ski8ll based system is the way to go. That way you can have all the relativey boring stuff (farming) and the exciting stuff (guns) all in one character really easily.

[Lunal]

What would be the end game? Seems like in the old west there wasn't really much variety in the way people spent their time. And not really any really big nasty bad guy bosses out there. I could see this being a glorified chatroom, with trappings, but not much else.

[miber]

What would be the end game? Seems like in the old west there wasn't really much variety in the way people spent their time. And not really any really big nasty bad guy bosses out there. I could see this being a glorified chatroom, with trappings, but not much else.

You could always go the PvP route - having the end game revolve around player struggles and fighting for land/resources and such.

[Grindel]

No end game?

Land baron
Holy man
Railroad tycoon
Bandit / Mercenary leader
Stagecoach/pony express
Chief
Cattleman
etc. etc. etc.

No these aren't boss mobs to fight, they're end results to aspire toward. Heck, imagine your diplomatic end game revolving around getting some huge tract of land forged into a viable State? This mythos is super-duper rich with possibilities. Good lawd, you could almost make a working MMORPG off of Oregon Trail, vintage Apple 2E. Done right it could be a ton of fun. Focusing on one small piece, such as gun fighting, would probably be a recipe for failure.

[Mitebe]

You could always go the PvP route - having the end game revolve around player struggles and fighting for land/resources and such.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I read this thread. Something along the lines of DAOC with 3 factions, Native Americans, Lawful settlers, Outlaws.

[Lascaris]

A class system really wouldn't work. A lot of those would be pure support which sucks as a class. A ski8ll based system is the way to go. That way you can have all the relativey boring stuff (farming) and the exciting stuff (guns) all in one character really easily.

I was thinking skill based actually. Even the "boring" things don't need to be boring in a wild west setting. Imagine a character starting life as a gambler..maybe he succeeds and gets a crapload of cash. He now decides to drop that and become a rancher. Perhaps he'll need to go on a cattle drive to get stock, fighting off indians, rustlers etc., get his ranch going, still fighting off thieves, maybe have to take part in a posse to hunt down outlaws, perhaps then his ranch fails, he now switches to being a rustler himself, starting off small, perhaps eventually becoming the local Jesse James.

[Lunal]

No end game?

Land baron
Holy man
Railroad tycoon
Bandit / Mercenary leader
Stagecoach/pony express
Chief
Cattleman
etc. etc. etc.

No these aren't boss mobs to fight, they're end results to aspire toward. Heck, imagine your diplomatic end game revolving around getting some huge tract of land forged into a viable State? This mythos is super-duper rich with possibilities. Good lawd, you could almost make a working MMORPG off of Oregon Trail, vintage Apple 2E. Done right it could be a ton of fun. Focusing on one small piece, such as gun fighting, would probably be a recipe for failure.

Sounds an awful lot like the Sims to me. As to the PvP elements, that doesn't seem to fit the west to me either. The west should be all PvE with very little PvP (dueling, mainly). The problem with making playable PvP Native Americans is that the reality was that realistically, it should be cowboys/the army/etc. wtfpwning them all the time. It would be about as fun to relive and politically incorrect as being a slave in a Gone With the Wind mmorpg.

[Gnizmo]

Sounds an awful lot like the Sims to me. As to the PvP elements, that doesn't seem to fit the west to me either. The west should be all PvE with very little PvP (dueling, mainly). The problem with making playable PvP Native Americans is that the reality was that realistically, it should be cowboys/the army/etc. wtfpwning them all the time. It would be about as fun to relive and politically incorrect as being a slave in a Gone With the Wind mmorpg.

Historical accuracy is worthless if it gets in the way of fun.