MMORPG

[alphaTECH]

Do one of y'all wanna whip up a quick multiplayer server supporting 100,000 players per session so we can run into each other in towns and dungeons and swap harpy-slaying and wizard-finding stories?

[Jay_H]

I'd play that. Why not?

It does raise the question how we'd prevent super-hacked characters getting into the online version. What's to stop someone going into their save file and changing health to 100,000?

[pango]

You don't even need hacked characters, some existing inbalances will be a problem once you go multiplayer...
Say, will characters using spells absorption + magicka self-splashing go along with characters that don't use that?

[Ommamar]

As much as I would love to see a MMORPG closer to the Daggerfall system, or hell even the Skyrim version of the game. I agree it would be a hard task to balance everything. One of the things I love about DFU is you can make what is considered a very weak character and still have a playable build. The problem with MMORPG is there are to many "The one's" involved so everything is about being the best in the game. It works fine in a single player or even a co-op situation but the more people involved the more pressure to build and play a certain way.
One game I am watching is Crowfall I think they are trying very hard to make the different path of harvester, crafter, warrior to be equally valid. No idea if they will succeed but I do see the effort as being there. I am not sure how well such a system would work in DFU as it currently is. If you get down to the basics of what the game is about it is character building and combat. You can go against that in a single player version but I think it would be come glaring obvious how weak that build is when competing against another person's build who was focused on combat. While you could role play the smooth talking diplomat or the rough spoken thief most are just going to stick something sharp into you or hit you with a debilitating spell.

[alphaTECH]

I quite honestly forget about PvP when I wrote the OP. In my mind it was a purely cooperative affair, so if someone changed themselves to level 100,000, nobody would be affected (unless it was in a good way, fighting off vampires for the little guy). I'm not a huge fan of people combating each other rather than the game, just seems like a distraction.

[pango]

Even then friendly fire is handled specifically, or coop with partners using spells absorption + magicka self-splashing will also be dangerous... But at least I guess it should be manageable

[Dagoth Reigns]

A way to get around the problems already mentioned would be to implement a whitelist, whereby only specified players are allowed to log in through validation of some form of online Id. 100k players is a bit much in terms of expected player base, although I guess that would be pretty cool if it did happen, in theory anyway. Perhaps to get on the whitelist I suggested they have to acknowledge/read a set of server rules and come to the forum to ask to be invited. This way multiple servers could even be created and they can be specific for various aspects of lore and roleplay that the participants must abide by. If they act up or can't follow the rules just remove them from the whitelist, problem solved.

I think that would negate a lot of the problems associated with most online games and allow people to craft a more specific form of game play.

Online could be a great idea, but I agree that there would need to be some kind of way keep the experience "under control", so to speak.

This whole project is still in it's infancy as far as potential goes, I wouldn't be surprised to see people working on this in the near future.

[MadPreacher1AD]

I like the idea and Julian had planned on it being an MMO. He designed the game engine in such a way that it doesn't distinguish between PCs and NPCs. Would such a system be possible under Unity?