The same thing you do in real Paranoia. Grief everybody, try not to die, and get through the ranks as far as you can before dying six times. The point is to be in charge and grief the lower colors. The point is to kill the assholes at the top griefing you.
Would you make some sort of world-building element, or are you basically talking Smash Brothers the MMO?
You should definitely include destruction of the computer as a nigh-impossible endgame goal. That way, the guy on top has something to strive for in addition to watching his back and being an asshole.
EDIT:
If it's a serious Paranoia as opposed to a silly one, there's relatively little violence.
Replace attacks with subterfuge and it's the same thing. Basically, is there anything to do other than act directly against other players? Anything to fight for? If not, you might as well play Smash Brothers online. Conflict for conflict's sake doesn't make for a long-lived game.
Replace attacks with subterfuge and it's the same thing. Basically, is there anything to do other than act directly against other players? Anything to fightfor? If not, you might as well play Smash Brothers online. Conflict for conflict's sake doesn't make for a long-lived game.
It's more a survival game. You have things you want to do, but they are almost impossible because you have to constantly watch out for the computer, and other players. Hence the name of the game, PARANOIA. You basically spend most of your time watching your ass and being a happy anti-communist.
How can it be a survival game if there's almost no violence? What is challenging you in such a way that you must survive?
being a happy anti-communist.
And what does that entail?
Basically, the idea is great, but you need at least an illusory reason for people to fight. Squabbling for the sake of squabbling will get very tiresome very quickly, but if you pretend that there's a point to all of it, people will keep playing for a long time.
In Galaxies, players could eventually found their own cities, become the mayor, and so forth. Something like that would ensure that the top people have a goal to strive for, while everyone else is scrambling to become the mayor.
A couple of games, way back when. You get orders from the computer and have at. The orders put you in direct conflict with everyone else, which is all well and good, but that is a very short-lived game. What would your proposed MMO include that would keep people coming back? Right now, what you guys are talking about sounds more like an arcade fighting game than anything else.
EDIT: Basically, I've only heard about a player-griefing dynamic with no veil over the top. Yes, at its core, Paranoia is a player-competitive griefing game, but it has a deceptive exterior. You need the deceptive exterior to complete the game. Everyone is ostensibly for the computer, but not really, and everyone is following the computer's orders, but not really. The vague driving goal is to eventually do something about the computer, is it not?
It sounds like you've only played Paranoia in ZAP! mode. It has a serious mode that is far from short-lived.
OK, so what would the long-term goals be in such a game? Again, without at the least having the illusion of a long-term goal, how does the game have any sort of survivability? If the only goal is griefing, and there is no other apparent goal, the game would die out very quickly. People don't play MMO's in order to grief each other; they play them in order to contribute to the world and feel a sense of accomplishment. Griefing is a byproduct of that, not the main goal.
If you just want to make Griefing: The MMO, that's a different story.
In response to Scott's Digimon comments: 1. Digimon started as a Tamagotchi ripoff, not a Pokemon ripoff. Get it right.
2. Still looking for a Digimon you might like...But there are a lot of relatively simple, non-humanoid Digimon out there. It's kinda hard to just pick one, since I don't know your tastes.
EVE Online is just about as popular as a Massively Multiplayer Griefing Game gets. It's just about the only MMO game I've seen with serious consequences for dying.
It doesn't fix the problem of level differences and having to grind for cash - though there are ways to make cash in EVE that require far, far less time than others.
Guild Wars has a death penalty system. If you die in pve or pvp. You start off with 10% less health and magic. The death penalty increases the more you die up 60% percent if I remember it right. Which made it difficult trying to clear an area or kill a boss. Which would end up you having to start over at a city in pve or losing a match in pvp. You don't lose any exp or gear so it really wasn't much of a consequence.
I'm highly intrigued by this Paranoia: The MMO idea. While I haven't played the RPG, I am very interested in the idea of a game designed to encourage paranoia. The game must be entirely about player-centric information; much like in poker, you must attempt to gather as much information as possible, while revealing as little as possible about yourself.
In other word, it's Dunyain: the game.
As for TheWhaleShark's question of what one's goals are in the game, that is much more difficult. I'm not quite sure.
I figure there's two options: 1) Design an actual artificial intelligence, ala The Computer from Paranoia 2) Design some kind of distributed GMing system.
The talk about griefing in MMOs makes me think of the infamous Serenity Now funeral raid from several years ago. It was well within the rules of the game, but it was deliberately done for the sake of humiliating the funeral goers. Sure, the victims should've gone armoured and armed, to prevent getting massacred, but it was deliberately done, for the sake of griefing, and spitting on the name of a actually dead WoW player. I wish I knew what happened to the guild after that, because there doesn't seem to be anything. As far as I know, all the guild received was flames from the victims and a hacking of their website. Were they specifically targeted by the Horde players who objected? Did some alliance guilds break off ties with them? I don't know!
But the bringing up of griefing makes me think of what would've resulted if this happened in a less strictly regulated MMO that Scrym talked about playing, ages ago...
Scott is wrong Bayonetta is awesome if you don't believe me as Dave and Joel and Daryl Surat. Also, the way the games is going so far is making me believe that the final boss will be the size of a whole universe :O Also, the first season of Digimon was freaking awesome if only because they actually die Also Agumon is awesome:
Bayonetta isn't a walk around and hit guys game. It's a game in which you have a massive amount of combos and awesome ways of killing guys. It's a game that requires a massive amount of skill in order to beat it on anything higher than easy. If you are shooting people in Bayonetta, you're doing it wrong. Well, unless you're using the Lt. Colonel Killgore.
Bayonetta isn't a walk around and hit guys game. It's a game in which you have a massive amount of combos and awesome ways of killing guys. It's a game that requires a massive amount of skill in order to beat it on anything higher than easy. If you are shooting people in Bayonetta, you're doing it wrong. Well, unless you're using the Lt. Colonel Killgore.
I haven't yet found a 3D action game that I am a fan of. All you do is walk around and mash buttons to kill all the bad guys. The only difference between say, Bayonetta and LEGO Star Wars is that in Bayonetta you have to hit more buttons before a guy dies. In LEGO Star Wars they go down in one hit.
Yes, there are a lot of combos you can do, but they don't matter. All you do is follow really simple patterns and repeat them over and over.
How far into the demo did you get? Did you beat it?
Bayonetta has a lot of different enemies and all of them attack in different ways. The game doesn't just boil down to mashing buttons, you have to learn the enemy's attack patterns and learn to dodge and counter them. The attack patterns even change between difficulties, the Hard difficulty isn't just "enemies have more health and do more damage," it fundamentally changes the strategies present in taking down the opponents.
Bayonetta has a lot of different enemies and all of them attack in different ways. The game doesn't just boil down to mashing buttons, you have to learn the enemy's attack patterns and learn to dodge and counter them. The attack patterns even change between difficulties, the Hard difficulty isn't just "enemies have more health and do more damage," it fundamentally changes the strategies present in taking down the opponents.
It's not fundamentally different. It's just more complicated. For example on easy mode the pattern to beat a bad guy will be A-B-A. On hard mode, the pattern to beat a bad guy will be A-X-Y jump dodge B-X-X-X-Y.
"Learning" the patterns is just a matter of trial and error with educated guessing based on the movements of the enemies. You could just look them all up on the Internet and memorize them. Executing the patterns once you know them is mindless. It's basically a game of Simon Says.
Think about old 8-bit and 16-bit games where bosses had patterns. How about Bowser from Super Mario World. The pattern is simple. When he throws the wind-up koopa, you stomp it and throw it straight up in the air so it lands on Bowser. When fire falls from the sky, dodge it. When he drops a metal ball, jump over it. When he throws an item, grab if you need it. When he bounces back and forth on the ground, dodge him.
Action games like these are basically fighting Bowser over and over and over. Each bad guy has a pattern, and there is a pattern to beat it. You memorize it, then you enter it. Simon Says.
Comments
EDIT:Replace attacks with subterfuge and it's the same thing. Basically, is there anything to do other than act directly against other players? Anything to fight for? If not, you might as well play Smash Brothers online. Conflict for conflict's sake doesn't make for a long-lived game.
Basically, the idea is great, but you need at least an illusory reason for people to fight. Squabbling for the sake of squabbling will get very tiresome very quickly, but if you pretend that there's a point to all of it, people will keep playing for a long time.
In Galaxies, players could eventually found their own cities, become the mayor, and so forth. Something like that would ensure that the top people have a goal to strive for, while everyone else is scrambling to become the mayor.
EDIT: Basically, I've only heard about a player-griefing dynamic with no veil over the top. Yes, at its core, Paranoia is a player-competitive griefing game, but it has a deceptive exterior. You need the deceptive exterior to complete the game. Everyone is ostensibly for the computer, but not really, and everyone is following the computer's orders, but not really. The vague driving goal is to eventually do something about the computer, is it not?
If you just want to make Griefing: The MMO, that's a different story.
1. Digimon started as a Tamagotchi ripoff, not a Pokemon ripoff. Get it right.
2. Still looking for a Digimon you might like...But there are a lot of relatively simple, non-humanoid Digimon out there. It's kinda hard to just pick one, since I don't know your tastes.
It's just about the only MMO game I've seen with serious consequences for dying.
It doesn't fix the problem of level differences and having to grind for cash - though there are ways to make cash in EVE that require far, far less time than others.
In other word, it's Dunyain: the game.
As for TheWhaleShark's question of what one's goals are in the game, that is much more difficult. I'm not quite sure.
I figure there's two options:
1) Design an actual artificial intelligence, ala The Computer from Paranoia
2) Design some kind of distributed GMing system.
But the bringing up of griefing makes me think of what would've resulted if this happened in a less strictly regulated MMO that Scrym talked about playing, ages ago...
It's not arbitrary, either.
Also, the first season of Digimon was freaking awesome if only because they actually die
Also Agumon is awesome:
Yes, there are a lot of combos you can do, but they don't matter. All you do is follow really simple patterns and repeat them over and over.
Bayonetta has a lot of different enemies and all of them attack in different ways. The game doesn't just boil down to mashing buttons, you have to learn the enemy's attack patterns and learn to dodge and counter them. The attack patterns even change between difficulties, the Hard difficulty isn't just "enemies have more health and do more damage," it fundamentally changes the strategies present in taking down the opponents.
"Learning" the patterns is just a matter of trial and error with educated guessing based on the movements of the enemies. You could just look them all up on the Internet and memorize them. Executing the patterns once you know them is mindless. It's basically a game of Simon Says.
Think about old 8-bit and 16-bit games where bosses had patterns. How about Bowser from Super Mario World. The pattern is simple. When he throws the wind-up koopa, you stomp it and throw it straight up in the air so it lands on Bowser. When fire falls from the sky, dodge it. When he drops a metal ball, jump over it. When he throws an item, grab if you need it. When he bounces back and forth on the ground, dodge him.
Action games like these are basically fighting Bowser over and over and over. Each bad guy has a pattern, and there is a pattern to beat it. You memorize it, then you enter it. Simon Says.
//Rym falls for my trolling :-p