The Daily Grind: How would you make a D&D MMO?

Gygax knows, the current system is certainly MMO-friendly. :P

Honestly, it would be better to focus on a well known setting like Forgotten Realms as opposed to being shackled to the pen & paper ruleset.

It would be based on 4th Ed (or a modified 2nd Ed for the sake of customization), in Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, and a real persistent world.

Personally, I would love to see someone like Turbine, or CCP do another D&D MMO.

I think most fans would like to see something in the Forgotten Realms - It's the most well travelled and documented, but with enough left to explore.

Also as the previous writer stated the current rules are good for a MMO or you could use the LOTRO system or something similar.

I think most would prefer to stay away from a "Heavily" instanced game. more like WOW or LOTRO.

just my .02c worth.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I'd like to see Tale Worlds (developers of Mount & Blade) do a D&D MMO.

D&D being what many consider THE foundation for what we define as MMOs would run a risk of being too cookie cutter in this oversaturated MMO market. Mount & Blade is such a brilliant amalgam of genres, that I think Tale Worlds would be an excellent candidate to be successful at creating a truly innovative MMO.

My one criticism with Tale Worlds and many (most) Western MMO devs is that Art Direction (and a very distinctive, interesting art style with a unique POV) is WAY too low on the priority list. Art is extremely important in a game, and again and again western MMOs cop out with a "realistic" approach that is inevidibly boring and forgettable.

So.. yeah, Tale Worlds + some studio known for taking risks with art direction.... so... 2k games?

Sorry Justin, I'm going to have to disagree. Unless Turbine somehow loses the rights to D&D, or unless they've chopped up the licensing between the different "worlds" such as Forgotten Realms, vanilla D&D, Ravenloft, etc. I think this is the only one we'll see for a long time.

That being said, I'd love to see to see one in the Forgotten Realms universe. Call me a sucker, but that was my favorite set of novels.

To be honest; I'd ditch the play mechanics (beyond keeping all the universally-known) terms & names), and embrace pretty much all the ambitions of Guild Wars 2 - dynamic combat, dynamic quests etc.

I think D&D licence games are bogged down in adhering to a pen & paper system that - at it's core - simply aims to apply variables to the art of storytelling.

I mean; the grand sci-fi ideal of D&D would be folks dressing up and stepping on to a holodeck to live out fantasy adventures like never before - not to step onto a holodeck and be chattering about armor class and dice rolls.

That's still a long while off, but there's no point skipping all the intervening immersion technologies to keep rehashing dice roll based systems generation after generation - just make a darn good cutting-edge game fully embracing the 'old school' no-nonsense unashamed wizards & goblins & fireballs fantasy setting.

Planescape: Torment MMO.

Gold box ftw, that's all I have to say really. :)

Developer with out any question Turbine.

Engine - same as LOTRO

Settings - Forgotten Realms > Starting with MMO called Forgotten Realms "Sword Coast" than moving with expansions : "Spine of the world" , "Shadowdale" , "Underdark" , "Cormyr" , "Anauroch" , "Jungles of Chult" (not necessarily in this order)

Ruleset - 4ed (it was made to be MMO)

How the game would work..hehe. The big question. And here is the wopper !

The new D&D MMO would be mix of Sandbox and Quest based.

How would this work ?

The world would be sandbox. You can go hunt monsters. And do what you will. But you could also get quests. The quest would be sort of maps directing you to locations on the map. When you enter location you would be in instanced adventure - same like ones in DDO

So It would be the best of both worlds - Sandbox and Dungeon crawling + insanely big lore of Forgotten Realms (coupled with great world crafting of Turbine)

One can dream :)

So here I was, looking around and I saw this post. Instantly, thought someone had actually brought back NeverWinter Nights as a MMO. Then I was instantly disappointed.

I miss the GoldBox games, they were so amazing.

I never really liked the way d&d turns to work on computer games. It seems much more suited to p&p games.

That being said i didn't get a chance to see 4th ed in p&p or crpg form, maybe it would fare better.

a) Keeping a sense of mystery, by not tossing dragons, monsters and wizards all over the place.
b) Immersion by environmental effects and innovative player options that make sense.
c) Roleplaying tools, and clever moderation.
d) No wizard/mages dressed with a collection of; ring of delayed blast fireball, talisman of fireball, wizards hat of delayed blast fireball, staff with delayed blast fireball, boots of fireball, bracers of fireball..
e) Forced limitation of the amount of people playing wizards/mages.
f) Players options, lots of it. I am not playing a dungeons and dragons game because I want to see familiar things, I want a game that works, has depth and makes sense.
g) A world not filled with people walking around with +5 Avenger swords.
h) No micropayment system.
i) One world, one server.

I would surely also look in the direktion of GW2 and its dynamic events.

And then i would like to see the alignment system in use on dynamic events

But then i would go for AD&D's Birthright for the setting.

While not the best know, its properly the one, best designed for MMO's

with all the rules for how to get, own and run kingdoms , domains and provinses
for guilds and players alike. ofcause mixed well up .
that could create some really interesting PvP conflicts, mixed with PvE god like powers influense aswell. And it just screams for that the Guild with the most power in a territory actual writes the laws in that area , and that a dynamic event sytem reflekts it

then there is the "highlander" theme of blood powers also , for the pursue of individual godlike power!

I guess Justin is hoping that Cryptic reads this, understands it, then doesn't screw up NWN-Online like they have every other IP.