Just to warn you all, my MMORPG experience is limited to World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies.

Anyway, here's an outline of what I think would make an excellent game. It's very, very long - likely a lot longer then some of you can stand. You've been warned. I'll try to summarise it soon, but for now, it's raw material.

I don't really have an idea about the title, and it's not that important - Age of Fluffy Bunnies would do fine as long as the content is good.

Theme

Ideally, the game would be set in the 3rd century BC, at a point which is dominated by both warfare and empires. With some slight stretching of the imagination, and accepting of some controversial theories, Europe and Asia could have had contact with the Americas around this time (read: very controversial theories, in some cases). Preferably, it would be totally historically accurate, as having the game set in, say, the year 238 BC would be very limiting. It would instead just be a sort of melting pot of the events of the 3rd century BC. In any case, major events and empires during this time were:

- Two Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage
- Roman Conquest of Spain
- Conclusion of the Warring States period in China and rise to power of the Qin
- Latter part of the Wars of the Diadochi
- Part of a rather sudden increase in population in Britain
- The filling of the Olmec power gap by the Maya and the Teotihuacan, after the Olmec died out

As such, the player would be able to explore the ancient world through and through, visiting all sorts of places and wonders, fighting for his empire, his religion, or his own greed.

Game World
Obviously, recreating the planet Earth (minus Australia, and maybe Africa) would be a tremendous feat to accomplish. Therefore, the world can't be one huge world; I would prefer to divide it into 4 sections; North Africa and Europe; Central Asia and Persia; East Asia; and Mesoamerica. These would be separated by loading screens; the rest would be a seamless world, à la World of Warcraft (but, one would hope, larger and without invisible mountain barriers).

Europe and North Africa

This would essentially be the Mediterranean and all its costs, encompassing Rome, Carthage, and all other mediterranean powers of the time, as well as Britain and the germanic lands of the north. Plenty to do for a few powers at the time.

Persia and India

At the time of the Mayura Dynasty and a Hellenistic periode in Persia, this part of the world is also host to, at that time, contact between China and the West. There are wars going on a wee bit everywhere, and enough to keep a player busy if ES thinks hard about it.

Eastern Asia

The many different factions are at war in China, but the Qin is finally getting the upper hand. These wars are pushing people into Korea; Xiongnu nomads attack China. This place is rife with warfare, carnage, and adventure.

Mesoamerica

This place will likely require some innovation on ES's part, but it would be incredibly worth their while. Players could see great Olmec constructs, adventure in the jungles of Mesoamerica, and aid the budding Mayan empire. Certainly has the potential to be awesome.

Player Characters

First off, the player would choose his nation, which also represents the location he will start in. With each different location will be reasonable ethnic differentials, and within those difference, appearences (and, for the sake of gameplay, sex) will be customizable.

Once the player is made and named, he's dumped into a randomly-chosen village either near or inside the "capital city" of his nation, with no skills whatsoever and nothing more then a fistful of cash - conveniently, enough to buy the tools required for starting a tradeskill and a combat proficiency, plus a little extra.

Player characters should, in my opinion, not function with a class-based system like WoW's. Everything should be based on skill (sword skill, axe skill, bow skill, etc), and there should be skills for lots of stuff - I'll explain more later. Here's some of the things skills could be applied to:

- Weapons (chance to hit, chance to critical hit, chance to block)
- Shields (chance to block)
- Trade skills (better chance to succede, better product stats)
- Martial Arts (unarmed damage/hit chance/crit chance/parry chance)

Other then that, it's pretty standard. Equipement would follow traditional style (slots for each body part). Equipement wouldn't magically give stats, though (except armour and damage and attack speed, obviously) - on the contrary, they would all incure hindrances, except basic clothing.

So heavy Roman-style armour would offer powerful prodection, but you'll be moving more slowly and be a bit more tired - in other words, attack skill, attack damage, and attack speed are all hindered quite a bit. So you choose between being ultra-lithe, or ultra-tough; or somewhere in between.

Combat

Just a quite note, here - combat should be much more like in First-Person shooters then like in WoW and SWG - I personally thing that target-and-spam fighting detracts from skill, realism, and fun. Melee attacks will all be slightly AoE, so that you can be sure to hit the thing in front of you - and maybe even two or three of them. Arrows will hit anything along their path, and when using special abilities, might even pass through a target...

Abilities would be used similarily, and targeting an enemy does not make any of your attacks target it - it only allows you to look at it and examine its power. In addition, abilities would use "Energy", which, along with Health, is one of the action bars. Energy slowly degenerates when in combat, and a bit faster when using abilities. While traveling it regenerates very slowly, and while logged off (sleeping) or eating, it regenerates very fast. It would be built so that combat would be viable always, unless a player decided to fight non-stop for roughly 5 hours (practically impossible).

There should also be a colour-coded combat rating system, where players and NPCs are noted as a certain colour determined by dividing the player's current equipement's combat skill against his enemy's. Colours should be intuitive - grey for way below, green for easy, blue for a little dangerous (even), orange for a bit too dangerous, and red for lethal.

Dying is the one part where some fantasy is necessary; upon death, you are "encountered" by an echoy voice somewhere with some light, and are told your time has not yet come. You then promptly appear at the religious institution nearest your place of death, whatever it may be, incurring durability loss on items. Nothing harsher - MMOs should be fun to play, not tediously horrible to advance through.

Combat Skills

Now, here's the deal: a player should always be able to consistantly gain skills for everything that exists, and master whatever he feels like mastering (as opposed to the class system). However, that least the obvious flaw that the player would be getting everything available, and would be master of all weapons. I say no to that: implement a "Familiarity system", by which gaining skill points in one combat profession will deduct from all the other's you've accumulated (though never going negative). To be reasonable, this could be limited to only work within three categories:

- Melee skills
- Ranged skills
- Unarmed skills

That way, a player could concievable master one of each - say, javelin, axe, and brawling, but nothing more. The fomula should be simple: for every point gained in X skill, deduce 2 points in an non-X skills. This allows for the player to change their profficiency rather easily, all while making sure they don't change it on a whim.

When fighting, switching weapons should take a few seconds - so if you shoot your target with your bow, it's in your best interest to change to your Axe before he gets there. Or, of course, you could run and shoot - which would require certain... skills (*cough* Parthian Shot *cough*). Other then that, it's a simple matter of each shot having a [NPC's combat rating] / [your combat rating] chance of giving you 1 skill point.

Just so that people don't farm even-levels for skill-ups, they should always travel in groups (except animals and low-level bandits), so that attacking one even-level means attacking 3.

Tradeskills

Tradeskills, however, would be much different then combat skills. You can skill get them all, and there is no Familiarity - however, higher ratings require that you renounce the ability to access other skills at high levels, and trade points are significantly slower to gain.

Tradeskills would be, for the most part, standard skills - no mineral, cloth, or wood gathering, however. For example:

- Blacksmith (takes mineral ore and transforms it into usable metal; makes metal weapons and armour)
- Herbologist (gathers plants and turns them into medecin or poison)
- Leatherworker (skins animals and readies the skin for use; makes leather armour, bags, etc)
- Tailor (makes clothes, banners, and other stuff out of multiple ressources such as fabric, leather, feathers, etc)
- Woodworker (makes bows, barrels, and other useful stuff )

There is no mineral or wood gathering because those are large-scale operations. One man doesn't run down a mine, dig up a couple of bronze nuggets, and then run away; the governement sends miners into the mine, take the nuggets, and then sell them or use them. As such, wood, cloth* and minerals would be bought (for a price that gets lower as your appropriate skill gets higher) from Official Ressource Distributors.

*cloth could also be scavenged from killed NPCs, though the quality would be understandably lower.

Each ressource has certain numeric propreties, or in the case of plants, special characteristics. These numbers translate over into the final product as affecting its important propreties (a regular copper sword will be less durable then a steel sword). Also affecting the end product is tradeskill level, which would be gained by creating items (wether successful or not - learning from your mistakes).

Also, appearence customisation would be available to crafters; they can decorate their Qin Cast Iron Breastplate with different patterns then another's, or leave it blank - if blank, players can then take it to a specialised NPC for painting, at a mild price.

Selling would not be accomplished by way of planting vendors everywhere a la SWG - instead, you can either give the item to Merchant NPC's at the local marketplace, or you can run around selling them yourselves.

Skill Trainers

This is important, I believe, because it would set the game apart from other MMORPGs. I think that different trainers should teach different or crafting techniques. For example, in Southern India you would learn how to create steel from the trainer, but not in Rome. Conversely, a tailoring trainer in Mesoamerica could teach you a plethora of clothing items that you'd never learn anywhere else.

Same goes for combat - in China, you'll learn Martial Arts that you would never have dreamed of finding in Europe; Romans could teach you the proper use of Short Swords, wheras Greeks would offer excellent pike or spear skills.

Quests

Quests, in this game, would not be done for experience. Rather, they would be done for cash and item rewards - or perhaps certain combat or crafting techniques.

There would be crafting quests, combat/hunting quests, delivery quests, and exploration quests. Officials should also offer repeatable quests ("kill 15 roman soldiers"), so that players could get a small reward for some killing.

In addition, quests should grant Faction appropriate to the one they were given from.

Factions and Languages

Obviously, lots of people are at war. Therefore, the many lands of the ancient world are littered with factions for you to join; some factions are mutually exclusive, others not. Fighting for Carthage will pit you against Romans; fighting for the Qin will lower your standing with numerous chinese states. Helping out bandits will, of course, make everyone hate you.

When you have enough faction within a nation, you may visit the nation's military commanders to gain special status and abilities - notably: discounts on vendor items, ability to call in NPC reinforcements who follow you and engage your enemies, access to special decorative items, and ability to obtain higher-level quests.

In addition, there are languages to be learned, and they can only be learned after being exposed enough to that language's speech. That means that if you want to learn Maya, you'll need to talk to mayans. You won't understand a word they're saying, but eventually one of the ones you talk to (randomly chosen) will catch what you mean, and then crash-course you on that language. It may take a lot of time (if you only know Chinese and try to learn Maya), or it may take very little time at all (if you know briton Celt and want to learn the Celt of the Gauls). A player can, theoretically, learn every language (although knowing one language might be enough to make you understood by several people, thus removing the need). If a player really does want to learn that language, they can choose to do so.

Player Interaction

Obviously, players are treated much like other NPCs, except that they have brains and feelings. Anyone can talk to anyone, provided they know each other's languages. Anyone can attack anyone anywhere. Anyone can sell things to anyone for whatever price they way - for convenience, all world nations are economically based on Gold.

Grouping is simple - you group up, you know see their stat bars next to you, and that's basically it. Also, while a part of the group, the entire group's faction ratins are like that of the leader (so you are KoS to his enemy's, not yours), allowing you to complete quests for enemy factions. However, all faction gained or lost while in the group remains afterwards - so you can't go from killing Indians for skill points to having them be your great friend as you please.

Guilds (not actually called guilds - something else may be better, like Brotherhoods) are also possible - guilds would have a specialised symbol, either in the form of a battle standard strapped to the player's back, a breastplate design, a head dress, or a piece of clothing (a wolf's head hat, a red silk cloak, etc). Guilds are also entered into another ranking system - guilds may declare war against other guilds, or ally with them, or remain neutral. Killing members of guilds will lower your faction with them, and raise your faction with their enemies. A minimum guild faction would be required to stay in a guild (determinable by the leader), and a minimum would be required to gain rank within a guild (both those minimums and the rank names are also up to the guild leader).

PvP

PvP combat is simple enough - you attack them like any other NPC, and you gain skill points like against other NPCs. However, there's a catch - if you get attacked by a player of much higher level (yellow or more, and he initiates combat), then you get to report him to your local authorities - and your aggressor will get beat on badly next time anyone within that authoritie's alliances sees him, in addition to a substantial faction loss for that player. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't risk being swarmed by 10 roman soldiers and have them now hate me just to attack a puny little half-level player.

In addition, hotly contested areas, there could be points that players would have to sieze in groups, by force. For example, the Romans might have a watch tower on a nearby hill, and the local Carthegian commander wants you and your buddies to take the tower. Once you have, the tower belongs to Carthage - until some Roman players take it back. Doing so will give you heavy faction points, but little cash.

Horses and Boats

Players will be able to own limited transport methods, as well; boats for the seas, and horses or wagons for the land.

Boats must be built by Woodworkers (hence the wink in Woodworking). They are simple, though - no trirems or anything. Fishing boats, small riverboats, and rafts; nothing more. Players CAN fight on these boats, however - coming sufficiently close, a player can either shoot at a nearby vessel or jump onto it.

In fact, boats will also have a few specific upgrades for combat; notable, reinforced fronts to ram other ships, greek fire spewers (only available to the highest faction ranks within Europe), and sling-shots, which fire large rocks or metal balls at enemies. Boats can obviously be destroyed, in which case you will either be killed by your enemies, or must swim to shore. Swimming for more then 45 seconds will start a counter - 5 swimming minutes later, you start to sink, and underwater, you can last another 45 seconds before drowning.

Wagons may also be built, in varying styles; the number of horses depends on the model, and increases speed as well. A player could theoretically make a War Wagon - somebody drives, everyone else rides along and shoots people apart.

Horseback riding is a powerful skill, because players may fight while on horseback. To learn it, you must find a trainer, pay him gobs of money, find a horse (and likely pay gobs of money for it, if not completing a quest), and then ride. While fighting on horseback, your combat skill is 65% infantry combat skill and 35% horsemanship skill, so you can't run around and fight quite like you used to. Likewise, skill gaining is essentially 2:1 combat:horseback. Parthian Tactics, learned at extremely high levels from Persian archer trainers, is deadly and only useable on horseback.

The End!

Whew. That's all I can think of at the moment - let me know what you think! If I figure anything else out, I'll add it (I already know I forgot something, hehe).