DrakHaven - The free forum MMORPG

[Gunnox (Gustav)]

Forewords

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Hello it have been a while since I visited this site and for a long time ago I had multiple ideas about tabletop roleplaying games but I have scrapped all of them because I got no-one to play with in real-life so it feel't kinda pointless to make a tabletop roleplaying game then. I have been into MMORPGs for a while and the ordinary dungeons and dragons, I have even gotten the idea to create my own 3d MMORPG but since I got no coding experience it went to the trash can (yes, literally)

I have played world of warcraft and lord of the rings online and still had the dream to have a very own MMORPG. Then I suddenly got the idea of making a text-based MMORPG, why not I thought and gave it a search on google (I want to be as original as possible) and got information about the genre play-by-post forum roleplaying games. I took a quick look and investigated the forums. Quickly I realized that none of these roleplaying sessions was interesting and reliable, I mean, players could become so ego in these games and say that they actually won every fight, succeed at everything etc. Now grossed by the play-by-post genre I forged together my ideas about a forum MMORPG which I have actually never found on the internet. With all my MMORPG experiences it is here, the free forum MMORPG DrakHaven.

So, what is this?

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DrakHaven is a free forum massively-multiplayer roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in the fantasy universe Ozerus. It takes the aspects of the classical tabletop roleplaying style combined with the modern MMORPG social features. Think about it as a tabletop roleplaying game but you carry over the same character in all adventures and that there are social features such as guilds, auction house and more.

This game is a forum MMORPG, in fact the first one that takes the forum-gaming to a new level by putting advanced features and addictive gameplay into just simple text. As if it would be a tabletop RPG you create your own character from scratch. There are many classes, races, skills and stats that make each character unique to the other.

All games are lead by a game master (GM) and one or more players. Together they create the game. Any player may enter as a GM but only one GM per adventure as maximum. The GM-system use a ranking system where players can search after more experienced GMs to get a game experience after their taste. GMs do only make the game playable, they does not however control the player characters. Think the GMs as the game engine.

With the features of a real tabletop RPG you also get the extremely broad freedom where you can do exactly whatever you want to do as long as your character is capable of doing that and that you follow the site rules. Carried over from MMORPGs there is the fun PvP (player versus player) action, exciting raiding feature and open PvE (player versus environment). You as if it would be a MMORPG get to choose between different servers but this time you don't pick "realms" or that stuff. Instead you take a gaming style like PvP or RP (roleplaying) and meet ALL the players that are also on that gaming style. This system leads to much more popularity in one style rather than splitting them into small realms.

Now you may wonder why roleplaying has its own server. It is so that the whole game is a roleplaying game regardless of style; you can make your entirely own choices and build your character around a custom story. As you may expect there are character sheets, dices, stats, advanced rules and things, roleplaying is just for those that want to act as their character rather than following a gaming system. Those who play on RP servers may play as if it would be an ordinary play-by-post forum RPG rather than the completely different forum MMORPG experience with game mechanics that DrakHaven offers.

The game mechanics are built around any type of character so any type of character can level regardless how much it fight. We, the creators of DrakHaven want to keep the RPG in MMORPG so we made it into a living and breathing world and possible for all characters to level at the same pace regardless of what they do. This encourages players to do other things than fighting to enjoy the game. Of course you can fight but as you know there are more ways to level. A fisherman would get as much experience when fishing as if a fighter would be fighting as example. So, now you also expect some classes that aren't combat oriented? Yes there are! There are merchant, minstrel, farmer, judge, builder and more. There are also classical combat-oriented classes such as the warrior, ranger, sorcerer and more. But how then would the not combat-oriented classes play in PvP effectively then? Well these classes have a big role as well as the front-liners because they do other things during the war. These classes' trade items with other factions, diplomatic characters make diplomatic actions; bards entertain soldiers at the tavern after a hard fight and so on.

As you may have taken note of is that the game tries to make a living world. To make it extra realistic this game has the advanced system that makes economic-system, resource gathering and more. Let's say that if you steal from that poor town over there they may become so poor that they can't buy food and then they will die. If you give wood and other building materials to a city then wait and see next day a new house that you can visit. Everything noted in the game are in the fictional world, so you can enter any house you want to, you can exterminate all the flies in the world, you can build yourself a statue of you and others may see it etc.

The game is fully played through imagination, text and rarely images. All action, images and characters are in the imagination. There you got a limitless budget of action effects and characters.

It is no way to cheat in the game. If however a GM or a player would break a site rule then they could get suspended or banned. It happen the same if a GM would break a game mechanic.

So, why do you post this in "The Forge"?

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Because I need some advice and thoughts about what normal people think about the idea about a forum MMORPG and I have never shared this idea before. I think this game counts as a tabletop RPG so I hope my ideas can be posted here on the forge.

I don't know if this is the right forum section but I need help to make DrakHaven and it is not done yet, just ideas and some word written documents. Everything I need is just people who design tabletop RPGs, no technical dudes needed.

The site is at www.drakhaven.freeforums.org

FAQ

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[Gunnox (Gustav)]

Sorry for the [/sup] things, I don't know why they are here. I couldn't write the FAQ because I accidentally clicked on post rather than preview, anyway, I will post the FAQ later. Share your thoughts about this idea. Thank you!

[Gunnox (Gustav)]

A little FAQ to remove the biggest questions.

Q. Is it free?
A. Yes, 100% free. All content and upcoming content will be free. No monthly subscription or VIP stuff.

Q. How do you level in this? What is the maximum level cap?
A. You level the same way as in dungeons and dragons except from that you gain experience from all "straining" actions. The maximum level starts at 70 but may increase as the game grows.

Q. How do you deal with realism?
A. In about all MMORPGs you find realism very low. If a warrior equips a "250+ intellect" item then he won't become smarter. But however, in DrakHaven in this case your warrior would become smarter and can solve puzzles, increase skills and think better. Combat overall is actually somewhat realistic. You will mostly die after 1-3 sword strikes rather than the style in other MMORPGs where one character could take about 200 hits and not die.

Q. How much does level affect your power?
A. Again, level works about the same as dungeons and dragons. It gives you a small portion of bonus health, energy, abilities and skills

Q. How will you deal with trolls?
A. Internet trolls are a common problem in many games. In DrakHaven we use many systems to keep as many as possible away.
List on threats against trolls:
1. Players who successfully report trolls get rewards to their characters, these rewards are ALWAYS great.
2. Players can report trolls by a single click. All reports are anonymous to other people but we can still see who made the report in case the report was a false report. False reports lead to warning.
3. Trolls are always IP and mail banned.

Q. How does the death system work?
A. As we currently think, dead characters will get temporary suspended from the site just because they died. Otherwise you could spawn, post, spawn, post and death isn't important at all. Characters below level 10 can't die. When you kill that enemy in PvP who ganked you, you really wish that enemy gets what he deserves, and it will get that. Some PvP game modes got free revival, in competitive modes.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gustav,

I appreciate the announcement, but MMORPG design isn't a topic for the Forge. I invite anyone who's interested to contact you directly, and anyone who knows, to let you know the best internet venues for discussing the game.

Best, Ron