I am wondering what exactly people look for in a Persistent Browser Based Game .

I am currently making a Mech style RPG for the browser and also updating the Paranormal Deathmatch script so it works and will be adding things to it.

So while i do, what sort of things do people look for?

I personally look for more then just fighting, other skills
AND customazation (or something I'm not english I'm sorry :()
also clans could be nice and an option to construct things, like build your on hangar or house of factory... stuff like that
Think beyond the normal

PvP tournaments

Quests that do give something worthwhile

Ability to hire mechanics and other different people with several professions to make customizable parts. Of making your character with a main profession and need to join different professions to make something (need of a clan/guild)

interactive guild chat (like MSN in conference)

and many, many more :P

Fun community. Simple yet engaging and a lot more under the skin.

I, myself, love lots of Trade Skills.

And don't make things easy to master...make the game last! :P

something groundbreaking, most pbbgs all follow a similiar pattern, which is why people get bored.

i'd want factions and bases, faction v faction dynamics. If it were a mech game i wouldn't want it to turn into a resource war because thats no fun. So any resource management shouldn't replace the warfare action.

This is a different mech game to what seems to be around, you own one mech, get weapons, armour, power packs, there will be clans, pvp, players vs bots, and lots of random things.

Only thing is i totaly utterly suck balls at doing any kind of graphics, so it seems it will be mostly a txt based game.

It will be quite a community based game, each Mech unit has a small profile, and each player has his/her own profile as well which they can add to. There is also a public bulletin/shout board on the right of the page :)

I might be wrong but being a text based only MMORPG won't bring many people to join it. Of all the games I've tried so far the text based ones are the first to "die" and have way less players than the ones with graphics so I think you would have a lot more success if you found someone good that could help you in that department.

I might be wrong but being a text based only MMORPG won't bring many people to join it. Of all the games I've tried so far the text based ones are the first to "die" and have way less players than the ones with graphics so I think you would have a lot more success if you found someone good that could help you in that department.

Well before i start forking out for images i do first want to get the actual core gameplay and layout done. I will implement images as i go along i think really.

At the moment i am trying to put in as much colour as possible to offset having bugger all images.

But it will be community based, as in you can upload your own personal avatar, and a picture for your mech unit.

What you think?

That might be better. In case of PvP "make sure" it appears a different screen with the participating mech avatars and then display the battle... I think having all aspects more graphic is better. Same with the parts of the mech IMO

skills extra skills other skills becides fighting skills
fighting bores me after 20mins.. unless its fun and rewarding :D
I hope I'm not making it to hard on you

Well i am putting in a repair skill which based on your skill you can repair a certain amount on your Mech without spending money or waiting for a reset. That is the first one i will put in, so once i work out how to do that properlly that will make it real easy to put any other skills in.

What sort of skills do you think would be good?

>edit

Small teaser image: http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/clericvash/Clipboard02.png

Repair skill has been implemented, and players profiles have been expanded with more options.

Bear in mind the teaser is old, there are more things on the page now :)

In a market saturated by all sorts of lvl battlers, how would this game be different? It would need something extra to draw players away from the other pvp battlers like paranormal deathmatch, hobowars and any other mech browser games with similiar gameplay.

In a market saturated by all sorts of lvl battlers, how would this game be different? It would need something extra to draw players away from the other pvp battlers like paranormal deathmatch, hobowars and any other mech browser games with similiar gameplay.

Well at the moment the battle system is basically finished and i don't plan to release the game until there is quite a few more things to do than just battle, implementing an integrated forum at the moment too.

It will be a very player orientated game hopefuly, i will value any user input anyone can give when i open it up a bit, and will put in anything players think will benefit the game.

I will also be having custom profiles and such too which are partly done.

I agree with the replies, however to make a game with ininite skills, custom weapons and lots of other items that are wished for is a lot, lot of work.

Honestly, you can have them and more, however companies are not making pbbg, they are making client based games.

Pbbg is still a kinda single person enterprise (except for fallensword, which is just kinda licking the envelope, not pushing it).

If I had a Million Dollars............

Tim

Altfuture.com

Try it and see.

The ability to do better at the game by being in some way clever or skilled, rather than by sitting online all day with a browser open to the game clicking the same stupid repetitive tasks.

What Chaosprime said, make it so its not all up to the timer or whatever i want a game to require skill not time.

I want to create a single character not an army, I want to customize my character, I want to level my character in more than combat, and most of all I don't want the game to be based on a timer I HATE WAITINGGGG. I also don't want to have limited moves every day, I want to do whatever whenever I want.

What Chaosprime said, make it so its not all up to the timer or whatever i want a game to require skill not time.

I want to create a single character not an army, I want to customize my character, I want to level my character in more than combat, and most of all I don't want the game to be based on a timer I HATE WAITINGGGG. I also don't want to have limited moves every day, I want to do whatever whenever I want.

That is what thing i am not going to do, games bug me when you have a limited amount of energy to do stuff, so i don't plan to, the game will not be time based since you can do whatever you want whenever you want.

Usually the limits are in place for two reasons, one, so that the player base doesn't level uber fast and you have to work like a mad thing to add content for their game-thirsty minds and two so the game servers don't phizzle out on you because everyone is still logged onto your game!!!

But thats your call.

I'm a sucker for a good story line, give your universe some history and perhaps thread a little of it throughout the game so your vision unfolds into the minds of your audience. That to me is far more important that graphics anyday. But thats just me. Its still nice to view something pleasent and appealing over same old same old.

I wish you good luck :)

chatting. lots and lots of chatting. lol

in programming they showed us how to make web bots to automate certain things, ignoring the time limits with captchas are there to make sure no one ruins the game by cheating.

im sorry but the whole "mech" thing and the whole "futuristic thing has been palyed out"

something i've been messing around with lately was this one where you own your own gang. you're a gang leader and well you take over territory, fight others for territory. ect ect. the more territory you take over the more fame your gang gets, more gang members you got. its all really nice. the only problem is how its updated once every 24 hours so you can only play ONCE every 24 hours. bit LAME.

i saw something like that, ninja united, i haven't tried myself but apparently it divided people into 3 ninja clans who can attack each other or something, sounded cool but i dont want to sign up for too many things.

Some browser games start up taking 5 mins or less to play then you're spending an hour trying to get things doing.