Maybe

I'd agree with Lum's responses and stuff in this thingie a little more if the premise was that there was only one good MMO design, y'know, something like WoW or EQ, I guess, in this case, and that all we were supposed to be trying to do was improve and perfect it.

Y'know, there just seems to be a lot of assumptions about what a MMO should be all about, so many, in fact, that I can actually identify exactly which MMO everybody is talking about heh.

And I'm not saying that's a stupid thing to do or anything, y'know, that's definitely one of the more sensible things to do.

But there's other ways to go, y'know, other frameworks to work with, where a lot of the junk we've learned from EQ and WoW (and MUDs if yer a Bearded Mummy) and all that, stuff that everybody seems to automatically agree with, don't necessarily apply.

And some of the craziest sounding ideas aren't really even half as crazy as they sound, and they're actually good places to start if you wanna start thinking different and come up with something new.

And you also gotta remember that New Ideas are always First Generation, they're Prototypes, they ain't had a chance to Evolve at all yet, and you gotta think and guess about what they might grow into, when you look at 'em, they're just the seeds, y'know?

And they also aren't just automagically fun, either, y'know, it all depends on exactly how they're implemented and how they tie into everything else.

Dundee (and other folks from some Not-Exactly-MMO-Games that I can think of, like that Peter Molyneux guy) actually did some of these things in the list already, like that one where monsters loot yer corpse, and it wasn't "great" or "sucky" just by virtue of the being a daring new game mechanic or something, I mean, them kinda things generally force a cascade effect, you need to play the game a little different, you need back-up sets of yer gear (which changes how you look at gear), exploration is way more dangerous ('cause you can get robbed by stuff that there's no way you could ever get yer shit back from by yerself), and it forces you to get help from other folks sometimes, plus there's secondary considerations and things that need to be implemented, like being able to put your name on the tag of yer virtual underpants, so that when other people loot the monster that robbed you, they can return yer stuff.

Or whatever, y'know, that ain't ever the only way to do it.

And even though getting robbed by monsters and all the junk that goes with it might seem kinda fun to you guys, having it happen all the time over and over again like some kinda BeggarMaker Game Mechanic isn't actually that fun ahaha.

And then there's the Technology Arguments, which are kinda pointless (and that's me being nice heh), 'cause I've already seen half of this stuff done already (although mebbe other folks wouldn't recognize it), and I can think of cheap-n-sucky ways to do half of the other junk right off the top of my head, and I've seen even crazier things implemented (I won't name names AHAHA), and that's all you really need to be able to do to know its possible.

Oh, and Technology Stuff like "We Got Mounted Combat And You Don't" is bullet-point competition junk that you use to Raise the Bar against the other guys that are making games kinda like you are, that's the real cost-benefit analysis you gotta do there.

Sure there's limitations, and there's also all sorts of other things you could probably limit that you ain't, y'know, to make room heh.

I dunno, all I'm saying is that its hard for me to be cut and dry like that about all these "weird" ideas unless yer talking about perfecting the D&D based WoW-EQ Strain of Monster Fighting Football Team Games or something, and thinking about everything as an addition or an attachment to that model, y'know?

I don't really think there are any sucky game mechanics, there's just sucky implementations of game mechanics, and if ya don't ever try to like the ugly little runts a little, from the start, then you ain't gonna get anywhere with 'em, so yer basically just working a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Y'know, like "needing to eat" in a game isn't just fun or sucky by itself, or fun or sucky because of the way it was implemented in EQ, but it definitely has the potential to drive a lot of other stuff that may or may not be implemented in fun ways, if you think about it for a while.

Or, alternatively, it could be done even worse than they did it in EQ, heh, but either way it doesn't really say anything definitive about whether Needing to Eat in an Online Game is good or bad, or Survival Oriented Game Mechanics in general.

Finally there's this "oh that will never work" business argument/element to this that reminds me of people saying "oh that isn't realistic" in a game that's all about magic spells and shit, I mean, if yer just getting high and thinking up artistic wishlists, there's no good reason to limit yourself to ones that second-rate amatuer-ass business-major guys will agree with heh.

Don't fall for that thing where you start agreeing with the guys that kidnapped you, man, ahaha.

And every second-rate amatuer-ass business-major guy knows he should be negative about everybody else's Innovative New Ideas until he can figure out a way to take credit for them the nano-second after they turn into a smashing success AHAHA.

Really, when I see stuff like this, I think of that thing where Dundee always said that he took everything you said he couldn't do or wouldn't work as a challenge, and if yer just thinking up this shit for fun, trying to think of really cool Potential Evolutions of the stuff that nobody else is probably thinking about, and imagining how games could be designed around those weird things, and what they'd be like, like I am, then that's definitely the way to go, man.

But then again there ain't really a single design element of WoW or EQ or UO or anything else that is sacred to me, aside from the idea that in the very end, it needs to be put together and packaged in a way where it'll retain customers and make money and shit.

And there ain't really anything blasphemous, either.