Arenas/true player freedom

[Xzi]

OK, here's a warning to begin with: this will be a long post. I'll try to do a short version at the bottom, but please don't read just that and assume that you can now debunk the entire idea based on certain details which you didn't read.

Second warning: in order for this idea to work, I'm assuming one key feature is in the game that hasn't been officially announced yet: player-built cities with customizable buildings.



Now let's get down to it. What we're looking for in a sandbox MMO is freedom. Freedom to play the game as we want to play it. For some this means creating their own quests, paying players to hunt down someone who may have wronged you in the past, etc. But what if we take this idea one step further? Customizable scenarios and challenges in which you, the guild leader with the suggestion and help of fellow guildmates can design the entire layout for.

What are traditionally thought of as arenas in MMOs are hardly a scratch on the surface of their true potential. Within a single building lies limitless potential which can bring boundless entertainment to both arena participant and spectator. My idea is simple, really. Well, simple on paper, maybe not so simple to implement. But any effort put into creating this system will be rewarded tenfold in popularity as a feature, guaranteed.

You start by designing the arena itself. Preferrably a large building in terms of width, with the action taking place on the ground floor, and spectators watching from seats built high above and rising further from there. Here's where the fun begins. Once your arena is built (assuming you had all the necessary resources), the guild leader is presented with a simple two-choice menu, of which he can hand control of to any guildmate. The menu has two options: "create scenario," and "load scenario." Since your arena has just been built, we have no scenarios to load. So you click "create scenario." Your camera is then zoomed out to give you a top down perspective of the arena in its entirety.

Here's where you gain complete creative control over what your arena is to become. Right now it's just a useless, empty building. What it will be is up to you. First, you choose the type of scenario you want to create. The pre-existing base scenarios are "player 1 on 1," "player team battle," "player FFA," "single-player creature battle," "team creature battle," "single-player adventure," or "team adventure." Since these options aren't quite as self-descriptive as the original menu choices, I'll give a brief description of each below:

In player 1 on 1, you create a scenario in which two players battle to the death. Simple enough. You'll be given the option to add walls and/or traps to the arena floor, based on the designs for walls/traps that your guild has acquired throughout your adventures in the game world. This will certainly make the fight more interesting. Then, you'll be given the option to designate the reward for victory in this scenario, as well as rewards for successive wins in the same scenario.
(I'm going to stop here for a second since this is the first I'm mentioning of this, and it is an important part of the overall idea. Designs for various arena elements such as walls/traps can be bought from vendors throughout the world, dropped off of NPC creatures, etc. Pretty much the same way designs for crafting might be found. And yes, certain designs for more deadly traps, hidden doors in walls and the like will be more rare.)

In player team battle, any specified number of player teams will fight against eachother to claim ultimate supremacy over their peers. As in player 1 on 1, you'll be given the option to lay as many or as few walls and traps for the fight as you wish. And once again, after the design phase you'll be able to specify rewards for single or successive wins in this scenario.

Player FFA will be the same as player 1 on 1, with the option to add as many player spots as you wish. Last one standing wins.

In single-player creature battle, one player will face off against as many or as few successive creatures as you wish. These creatures will be captured from the game world by your guild in order to fight in the arena. Your library of creatures to choose from will be restricted based on what your guild has captured. As in the other modes, you'll be able to place traps and/or walls on the arena floor in order to make things a bit more exciting if you so choose.

In team creature battle, a single team faces off against a single or successive captured creatures.

In a single-player adventure scenario, you can create any sort of nefarious objective you wish. For example, you can create a maze of death with traps and captured creatures to fight along the way, where the ultimate objective is simply to reach the exit alive. Or you could create a scenario in which one player is captive in a cage guarded by other player(s) or creature(s) and the single player's objective is to free him.

Ditto as above for team adventure, only a team would be attempting to complete your objective, instead of one player.



Now I've given a short description of each scenario you can design, it's time to talk about the editor you'd be using to do so. As I said before, you'll be given a top-down perspective of your arena. You can edit any part of the ground floor where participants will be fighting with various objects. After choosing your scenario type, you'll have four windows open. The first with colored X's which will designate where a player, team of players, creature, or creatures start in your scenario, one with your choice of traps which your guild has found the designs for, one with your choice of walls that your guild has found the designs for, and the last with creatures your guild has captured (depending on the scenario you chose). Placement is entirely up to you. Any object including player/creature starting position is rotatable 360 degrees, giving complete freedom of design. (Note, in the adventure mode, some extra colored X's will be added to your menu. When placed, you'll be asked what they are for exactly, IE "player must reach this X in order to complete objective." Additional note: these X's won't actually be visible on the arena floor when the scenario starts.)

Just to reiterate: after creating each scenario you'll be able to specify a reward for completing the scenario, and if you so wish, rewards for successive wins in the same scenario. These rewards will be chosen by the scenario's creator from the guild bank. You'll also be able to dictate whether or not spectators will be able to bet on this particular scenario, and what the maximum bet amount will be if you do choose to let this happen. Then you'll be given the option to save your scenario to the arena for later use, or to start it right away assuming you have all of the players and spectators you want ready.

The arena floor remains empty until a scenario is loaded, at which point all of the walls/traps/creatures that the scenario's creator placed will appear. Spectators will be given a set amount of time to place their bets on whichever player/team of players/creature/creatures will win. That amount of time will be determined by the person who loaded the scenario. Who, by the way, can be the guild leader or any member of that city's guild who has been given arena permissions by the guild leader.

Now, one potential flaw of implementing all this in a sandbox-style MMO is that absolutely everyone is free to do what they want. This includes the spectators. One of whom might decide that, just to be annoying, he'll start firing arrows at one of the participants in your scenario. This is why I recommend that when you build your arena, you keep this in mind and build the seats for spectating high enough off the ground that hitting the participants becomes near impossible. And then, just for added peace-of-mind, place guards at various points throughout the spectator seating. That way, on the off chance that someone in the audience does actually hit a participant, they get attacked by guards and inevitably die. Just for added evil-ness, I'd say they should lose any money they bet as well.

Of course, I'm not telling you how to build your arena. That is entirely up to you, because that's what this is all about. Freedom. Thanks for reading.




Short version: an arena where custom scenarios can be created/loaded by the guild who owns it using a simple editor. IE custom maps in Warcraft 3 confined to a single building in the game and without changing the core gameplay. The ability to add walls/traps based on crafting designs your guild finds in the game world, as well as use creatures your guild captures from the game world in various events which will yield rewards chosen by the scenario's creator(s). Spectators can also bet on the outcome of these events.

[Mukan]

Something like this is completely possible with a simple player-run event. I've participated in many arena battles in EQ1 way back in the day. I think it would be more trouble than it was worth to code custom rule-sets for specific buildings, rather than letting the players organize any events however they want. It IS a Sandbox, and if the Devs were to code rulesets for 1 building, they'd end up having to code custom rulesets for all of them, which quickly takes the "sandbox" out of "sandbox MMO."

[Xzi]

Originally Posted by Mukan

Something like this is completely possible with a simple player-run event. I've participated in many arena battles in EQ1 way back in the day. I think it would be more trouble than it was worth to code custom rule-sets for specific buildings, rather than letting the players organize any events however they want. It IS a Sandbox, and if the Devs were to code rulesets for 1 building, they'd end up having to code custom rulesets for all of them, which quickly takes the "sandbox" out of "sandbox MMO."

I understand your point. But the only real core game mechanic I added is the ability to customize the arena and capture creatures for it. Everything else remains entirely the same. For example, when in a team battle scenario, it is still entirely possible to kill any of your teammates. This is an open PvP game after all. The ruleset in the building never changes. I'm simply adding ease-of-use to player run events such as these. You can't exactly add walls/traps/creatures to normal player run events, now can you?

Not to mention that the ability to place objects in the game world is already there assuming that player-built cities are in the game. So in all honestly, the only thing I'm adding with this idea are the designs for walls/traps and capturable creatures. For the most part I'm simply taking ideas that are in the game already and expanding upon them.