PowerFusion50
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"THE PERFECT GAME"
A DIALOUGE BY POWERFUSION50
Hi, my name is Jason. Yesterday, I and my friend Johnny set out to make the Perfectly Just MMORPG. Or in other words, the perfect game. It turned out to be a much longer process than we anticipated, it consisted of finding every problem in the MMO world in general and solving it, ultimately becoming a game in which all players are exactly equal. This was essentially so that no player could boast their level or experiences, or have any clear-cut advantages in Player-vs-Player combat. Here is our story:
I walked into my friend Johnny’s house, who, earlier that day had given me an important call. We had already designed one MMO together, and he was already making another one. “Hi, John,” I said, “what kind of game are you making?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, “I want it to be something different, something new, something that nobody has ever seen before. I need your help. What can we do that is brand new to games?”
“You have asked me a difficult question, what have you designed already of the game world?”
“Most everything. Countries, shops, the PvP zone and so on. I have yet to start on the mechanics and so-forth, but the game world is basic enough to support anything we conjure. It’s already formatted to be an MMO.”
“I don’t know…” I responded. What else was there to say? What is ‘new’? I sat in silence for awhile thinking, and after awhile noticed a book laying on the table. I picked it up and the title read Plato’s Republic. “Oh, wow!” I said. “The Republic, I didn’t know you read Plato. What is this one about?”
He seemed really ‘down’, and as he slowly answered: “Oh, it’s about the perfectly just society,” his head shot upward so quickly I thought it might go flying off, his eyes were widened so much that they could have easily popped out. “That’s it!!” He said, “We will design the Perfect Game!”
And with that, the construction of our new game would last all night long. “Perfect game?” I asked, “what isn’t perfect about games already?”
“Everything!” he shouted. “There is so much to innovate and so much to do! First take the social structure of the players. Did you notice that all MMOs are hierarchical?”
“Hierarchical? How?” I asked. This was a very strange observation.
“It’s simple:” he said, “every existing player account is at a different level with different weapons, yes?”
“True. But how do we eliminate it?”
“This is a long and weary process. First, when are game is complete, we implement a very small level cap, say 10, and make it easy to get there.”
“But no matter how small you make the level cap, players will join continuously and must always take time to level up. How do you eliminate that factor?”
“If you had let me finish, I would have said that we must advertise the game to its fullest, and leave the severs open for, say, a year. Then, we warn all players that anyone who has not made it to level ten will have their characters deleted at the end of the year. Afterward, we abolish the ability to register, so only the level ten players will be left.”
“I follow…”
“So then we raise the cap to 20, our highest cap, and then give the players six months to reach it. Any player who cannot keep up will have their character deleted.”
“That is harsh.”
“It is the price of the Perfectly Just Game. You see, if every player has the same level, then they are essentially equal. There will be no rare items to obtain or collect, and we will implement no events to only remove them later. Furthermore, we will abolish character statistics such as Strength and Dexterity and so on, and will take away the ability to gain XP points once the servers close.”
“What about gold?”
“Oh, yeah; we shall cap the gold like the level. No player can obtain more than 10,000 gold, which will be very easy to obtain, and no available item will go above said amount. Also there will be no secondary currency.
“What about weapon statistics? Aren’t some stronger than others?”
“Ordinarily, yes, but in this case they shall be exactly the same. Furthermore, necessary items such as a first weapon and first armor will be free.”
“That sounds all fine and dandy, but you are forgetting a major factor of all games?”
“What is that?”
“Classes. Warrior, mage, rogue, and so on. Each one has advantages and disadvantages over the others.”
“Not in this game. Firstly, we must eliminate the rogue class. It is far too similar to the warrior to deserve such a significant slot. The only two classes will be warrior and wizard. Secondly, they will be exactly the same. The sword and spell will be equal in strength, so no matter what the player does they cannot outdo another. The armors will also be equal in strength.”
“If everything is equal, then what reason does the player have to pick one or the other?”
“Nothing but their own taste. This way, the player can have any wizard robe or staff – or any warrior armor or sword – and not be taken down easily by anyone of the opposite class.”
“That is genius. But you remain to forget aspects. Take for example subscription. What will subscribers get?”
“Absolutely nothing, as they will not have the option to subscribe. Nothing creates inequality among players more than subscribers and non-subscribers interacting in the same world. Do I continue to forget things?”
“Yes, what about skills? In Runescape you can cut trees and make fires, or fish and cook them with the fires. You can bake breads, brew various alcohols, make your own equipment, and so on.”
“All of that will be gone. In AdventureQuest Words, none of that gunk is present, so we will format it to be similar to that game. There will be only shops, quests, and PvP.”
“What about quest rewards and prizes?”
“Gone; we cannot force players to take a quest to be equal to someone who already did. There will only be a money reward for completing the quest as a whole. Monsters will not give gold in individual battles, and every quest will offer the exact same money reward. Let’s make it 1,000 gold.”
I hope I did not forget to mention that he was programming all of this stuff as we discussed it. “What about areas? In Runescape you need to walk to where you’re going.”
“That will be gone. We will use a map system like the one in AdventureQuest Words. All places and be equally travelled to by all players, and can be travelled there with the click of a button. That way, no player will go somewhere that another player does not feel like going.”
“I suppose it is needless to say that morality alignment will be absent in this game?”
“Absolutely, there will be nothing of the sort.”
“And what about parties?”
“We will allow parties for up to three people. However, there will be no quest or any monster that requires more than one player to beat. In Disney’s Toontown Online, the loner cannot exist, as none of the game can be executed solo. This way, the player will not have to deal with the stupidity of fellow members bringing them down on their adventures.”
“And what about the chat structure? Will we censor profanities and the like?”
“No, we will warn our players outright that any chat content may and probably will be expressed in the game. That way no one can get banned.”
“Wow,” I said, “is it possible that you have solved every existing problem in the world of online games?”
He smiled and said, “Yes, I believe it is,” and then happily leaned back and pressed ‘Enter’ to launch the game.
THE END
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