Kindred, Garou, and Mages. It'd rock, seriously. Just think of the PvP. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You sir have the best idea in this thread so far.
However, I'd recommend you insert mortals as well. Purely because it would be funny to see a vampire try and drain a mortal he met on the street only for the mortal to try and blow his head off with a shotgun. That and playing as a mortal in WoD is much more fun. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I'd like to see something like Beyond Good & Evil, but online. By that i mean it's art and musical style, the cartoony surface and deeper underside.
I wanna see realtime combat on foot, in a hovercraft, flying or in space.
The world, Hillys, could easily be populated by player owned islands or property on those islands.
It's kinda basically how BG&E is already, but bigger, and online. Also, i'd be made ingame king. I'd have special music. Also, should i choose to play a male character (But i wouldn't), my wang would be extraordinarily huge.
"Respect" is now split up into respect from each of the factions (Mafia, Triad, etc.), and the more respect you have with one, the less you do with another. A player can gain enough respect to work up their way through a faction's ranks. Get enough, and you can take over a gang (local section of a faction, like the three mafia families in SA, or the Liberty City mafia faction), and eventually head the faction itself. Of course, you'll have to kill the current guy in charge in order to take over his job; people working their way up the ranks need to watch the people above them (who don't want you offing them), and below (they want your position). The lower the position, the more a gang can have, so those lower on the ladder don't need to worry about a dagger in the back.
You can also work for the police force or the media, going undercover and infiltrating a gang.
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
edited July 2005
<!--QuoteBegin-theclam+Jul 5 2005, 11:55 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (theclam @ Jul 5 2005, 11:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Also, Quaunaut, I'm curious about this: <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--># Unlimited Amount of Skills And Levels, through the 'Ascension System'<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Coming from GW and WoW, I've become a convert to a low level cap idea. High level caps just give an advantage to grinders. You can't be competitive if you don't constantly get more XP. In GW, the cap is so low (20) that someone with 50 hours played can have access to the same armor and skills, and have the exact same stats, as someone with 500 hours in the game. The 500 hour guy just has a large selection of skills to choose from, giving him more <b>options</b>, but not more <b>power</b>. I hope you don't mean unlimited levels, where each level makes you more powerful.
Also, I love the idea that more agility gives you a faster running speed. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> While those games give good examples to the low level caps, I'm making sure its hard to get to higher levels. Its not just "Level up level up level up level up"- at certain intervals, you must unlock the next several levels. The first is at level 60: That will unlock you to level 100. At level 100, you must unlock to level 120. Then to unlock level 130. Then 135. Then 140, and 145, and 150. At 150, you must unlock for EVERY SINGLE LEVEL after that.
Unlocks(all of them) will be hard, with the final hard one being 150, which will be nigh on impossible.
With the Ascension system, you continue unlocking the levels to continue powering yourself as you get higher and higher. I'm going to personally be designing the level unlocks up to 151, at which you'll be doing "Collection" quests of the PvP kind: "Find and Kill 1000 of the Enemy, and bring back a remnant of each." Also, alignment may affect this. Evil characters will be influenced to kill certain people, and good may be influenced to kill certain people. And yes, being Good or Evil will have its rewards, and no, Evil is not just from killing bad people, its also from ordering people to do bad things, or stealing and the such.
I'm hoping that our content will be enough to get people to constantly be working, instead of 'having fun slaughtering lowbies'. Also, there will be other ways I protect the youngin's, like Guards(for the lower-highbies), as well as a few things that will really, really suck for highbies.
For one, GMs will be physically in low level zones all the time.(low level zones are 1-50). GMs will take the place of Gods, and will actually become visible and attack a player that is heavily griefing. And while it IS possible to kill a GM(!), you've gotta be very high level. Eventually, we'll just wall the character off from the spot. I want to allow them to slaughter youngin's, but griefing isn't allowed.
Not to mention, I'm hoping the story I design for the game can grab people as much as I'm hoping. I was actually going to have the story be following the highest level player, with 8 or 9 GMs traveling with him/her, doing the story. I'll be sure to make it plenty dramatic.
More or less, I'm just trying to keep them to getting higher, and better, through lively content. The Ascension system is rewarding, but I won't make it all powerful. If the GMs have to(cause I'm sure we'll be getting a level 1000 character eventually) I'll personally be getting up to slaughter their ****.
And to dispel something: Your levels make you exponentially higher, but not invicible. If a Epic fight is going on(several characters against one, and their all in the higher tiers) players will vote for each, and each vote will up a stat by 1%, getting that character damn powerful.
Yes, totally unlimited levels. But I'm wanting to get rid of that word "Endgame"- it makes developers ignore the content for lower people, as well. I'm wanting them ALL to be enjoying the game as much as possible, not worrying about "Reaching the Cap". Not to mention, it'll only be the skilled people busting the caps anyway. Being its a 100% action based combat system, it will require skill. The stats just influence how much you do XD
Funny you should make this post... I had an idea for an MMO last night out of randomness.
I haven't fully fleshed out my ideas, so it might end up to suck as a concept, but basically my idea is a Western-style MMO. It occured to me that the old west seems to be exactly the sort of setting that most MMO games end up emulating.
Think about it, every MMO tends to have:
-PKers (outlaws) -Anti-PKers (the law) -Consentual PVP (quick-draw duels, bar-room brawls) -Crafting (blacksmiths, gunsmiths, miners) -PVE (fighting da injuns)
Basically the game would be something like Neocron 2 in style, except it wouldn't suck. Skill gain would be possible, but never anything which directly improves your ability to kill, i.e, you can get a skill which allows you to draw quicker or reload faster, but not one to make you fire faster or be more accurate.
The game would probably be set in a fictional world with a western theme, not the actual old west. This allows some liberties to be taken with the story. This would also allow the game to contain a variety of NPC monsters to fight in order to keep the game interesting; you can't fight the indians ALL the time.
Death would be WoW style, with only a minor penalty; ala your equipment becomes slightly worn and you appear at the nearest graveyard/doctor's practice. Speaking of equipment, there would be all the basics you'd expect such as trade tools (axes, pickaxes, blacksmithing hammers e.t.c), knives (both thrown and non-thrown), handguns, rifles and blunderbusses, plus cool hats and boots which don't do anything other than look cool. No armour or "medpacks", but perhaps health that regenerates over time with items which increase that regeneration rate.
You would start the game as a civvie with no skills, and work your way up from there. Experience could be gained by fighting the aforementioned monsters or the "indians", or by crafting. Obviously crafting only increases crafting skill, which is seperate from regular skill, WoW style. You can either remain a civvie, or join one of the two factions.
If you join the law, you can form a Posse and set out on various missions; kill 10 Injuns, collect 20 generic monster carcasses, hunt for joe bloggs, who could either be a real player outlaw or an NPC, e.t.c.
If you join the outlaws you'll take a hit to your reputation, which would basically be a measure of... well... your reputation. You will be shot on sight if you enter certain towns with a low rep, but then there are always a few run-down lawless towns for the outlaws to hang around in, just like in the movies. Once your reputation reaches a certain level you can be shot on sight by anyone, otherwise you have to have commited a crime within a certain timeframe to be targeted.
Basic activities for the outlaws would include bank robberies, holding up a stage coach, train robberies, breaking prisoners out of jail, assasinating the sherrif/mayor/someone important e.t.c. These would be available in both PVP and PVE flavours.
A PVE mission simply features NPC outlaws/lawmen to fight, whilst a PVP mission is basically an instanced mission.
Example:
Joe Bloggs is in a posse with 3 other lawmen. He is the leader of the group and they decide to start a PVP mission. They go to the Saloon and check the noticeboard and see:
<u>Jobs available in Generic City</u>
-Protect the stage coach [1/3] (5 max) -Protect the stage coach [5/5] (full) -Defend the Sherrif [0/5] (5 max) -Jailbreak! [0/3] (10 max) -Catch the cattle rustlers [6/3] (full)
Where [x/x] indicates the number of lawmen/outlaws in the mission.
They join the first mission on the list, and join the mission's "lobby". Whoever joins the mission first becomes the host, who can decide when to start the game, but can only do so if the teams are even. Missions could be shared between cities if lack of players proved to be a problem.
Another aspect of consentual PVP would be duels and brawls. Duels would be between 2 players, with the ground rules being agreed to by both players before the duels began. The duel could be, for example, a fistfight, a gun battle, a knife fight, or just anything goes.
A brawl would be initiated in much the same way as a PVP mission, with people joining via a lobby system. There would be different sets of rules to choose from, i.e, fists only, no guns, no knives e.t.c, as well as the option of a team brawl or a free-for-all. Naturally, anyone can join a brawl, even civvies, and yes, lawmen can fight lawmen in the spirit of drunken chaos.
So... what do you think? I kind of wish I had the ability to make this happen now... but a year spent learning delphi and caml light does not a master programmer make.
<!--QuoteBegin-Sub zer0+Jul 6 2005, 11:37 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Sub zer0 @ Jul 6 2005, 11:37 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> How would xp work? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Gain a set amount for defeating NPC monsters/outlaws/lawmen e.t.c, shared between the group if you're in one, also awarded xp depending on your performance in an instanced mission/brawl. I can imagine brawls becoming the standard way for newbies to gain xp, as you'd be able to gain reasonable xp using only your two fists <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Duels would not give XP, as otherwise you could just duel the same person over and over and farm XP.
*EDIT
Ok, i've got some time on my hands, so i'll elaborate on a few points.
Xp would not be a major focus of the game; money would. Naturally the dollar would be the standard currency, with bartering coming a close second. With your money you would be able to buy different equipment, which i'll discuss later, as well as cosmetic things like hats, boots, gloves e.t.c. I'd like a high enough level of customisation that no two players would look alike. Naturally you would be able to buy horses of varying quality, which would be required for some missions such as holding up the stage coach (jumping from horse to stage coach action FTW). Combat from horseback would be possible, and would be awesome. The final thing you could buy with your hard-earned cash is your very own home. Starting players would have only instanced appartments, with players who progress further getting access to houses of various sizes which can be visited by other players, pending your permission. A large area would have to be set aside for player housing, lest my game suffer the same fate as Ultima Online, with houses infesting every square inch of ground and costing several million gold coins.
Now back to equipment. Your equipment should ideally not give you an advantage over an opponent. I.e, you can buy a more powerful gun than your enemy's, but expect it to also be less accurate or have a smaller ammo capacity to compensate.
I still haven't decided about weapon upgrades; one player should beat another because he is better, not because he has the better gun. On the other hand, we need something for those crafters to do. Naturally a gun should still always beat a knife or bare hands at long range, so i'd have to make a rock-paper-scissors kind of system, i.e,
Rifle beats everything at long range due to greater damage and accuracy. Rifle loses to everything at melee range (as it would have a long reload time).
Pistol beats rifle up close and at short range due to higher ammo capacity. Pistol beats knife at long range due to... well... range.
Knife/fists beats pistol and rifle at melee range. Knife can also be thrown if skill points are invested in throwing knives.
Ideally i'd like to see someone who invests skill points in brawling becoming easily the better of an unskilled knife wielder.
I'd also like a deus-ex style damage system whereby shooting someone in the leg won't kill them, but will slow them down a lot. Headshots shoud result in increased damage, but not instant kills. This is an MMO, not counterstrike. On that note, bunnyhopping would be punishable by death. At the very least i'd have to implement a stamina bar ala DoD and Planetside. I'd also not make the same mistake that Battlefield 2 did and make sure you CANT JUMP WHEN YOUR STAMINA BAR IS EMPTY! Currently in BF2 jumping reduces your stamina, but it doesn't stop you from jumping again the moment you land.
*Edit to answer Sub Zero's question
Skills would allow you to use new items of equipment; without the skill you would not even be allowed to hold the item (ala planetside) although you would be able to keep it in your inventory. Basic skills would include
-Pistol use -Brawling -Rifle use -Knife use -Knife throwing -Dynamite use (think of it as a grenade)
If this wasn't enough, I could always split the rifles and pistols into several different catagorys such as blunderbusses, muskets e.t.c.
These would be the basic skills which allow you to use stuff. Once you have these you would be able to learn advanced techniques along the same "tree" such as:
-Pistol quick-loading, Pistol quick-drawing, Pistol-whip (melee with pistol), akimbo pistols (larger clip capacity and faster rate of fire offset by lower accuracy; ideally accuracy should be lowered to the extent that an akimbo pistol user is on par with a single pistol user). -Headbutt, chair use, broken bottle use (oh yeah) -Rifle quick-loading, rifle-butt -Akimbo knife use (oh yeah), backstab (extra damage from behind)
You get the idea. There would only be about 20 "levels" of experience, so you would have to specialise in order to make the most of your character. Crafting XP would not count against this limit.
good ideas everyone but no one's commented on my idea <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I have mentioned my another dream MMORPG many times already, and it always get thread locked, so it will not be mentioned...
Anyway...
Wuxia Online (use wikipedia if you have trouble deciphering the stuffs)
On the box cover:
"A monumental MMORPG covering 4000 years of Chinese history. Choose your family and nationality (Han, Mongol, Jin, Dali), start or join existing major clans (Shaolin, Wutan, Emei, Huashan, Kunlun). Determine the fate of your family line, establish the lines of distinguished soldiers, scholars, strategists.
Be the part of history as the story progresses from the Warring States period, to Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing.
Through the players action and influences, new dynasties arise, permanently changing the game world. Be a part of the Mongol Invader, join the farmer rebellions against the Qin dynasty.
Earn reputations, estates, martial art styles, and pass on to your kins."
Comments
Kindred, Garou, and Mages. It'd rock, seriously. Just think of the PvP. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You sir have the best idea in this thread so far.
However, I'd recommend you insert mortals as well. Purely because it would be funny to see a vampire try and drain a mortal he met on the street only for the mortal to try and blow his head off with a shotgun. That and playing as a mortal in WoD is much more fun. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I wanna see realtime combat on foot, in a hovercraft, flying or in space.
The world, Hillys, could easily be populated by player owned islands or property on those islands.
It's kinda basically how BG&E is already, but bigger, and online. Also, i'd be made ingame king. I'd have special music. Also, should i choose to play a male character (But i wouldn't), my wang would be extraordinarily huge.
I certainly hope the next release finally adds it.
"Respect" is now split up into respect from each of the factions (Mafia, Triad, etc.), and the more respect you have with one, the less you do with another. A player can gain enough respect to work up their way through a faction's ranks. Get enough, and you can take over a gang (local section of a faction, like the three mafia families in SA, or the Liberty City mafia faction), and eventually head the faction itself. Of course, you'll have to kill the current guy in charge in order to take over his job; people working their way up the ranks need to watch the people above them (who don't want you offing them), and below (they want your position). The lower the position, the more a gang can have, so those lower on the ladder don't need to worry about a dagger in the back.
You can also work for the police force or the media, going undercover and infiltrating a gang.
Edit: Tykjen posted as I was typing this up. ;P
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--># Unlimited Amount of Skills And Levels, through the 'Ascension System'<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Coming from GW and WoW, I've become a convert to a low level cap idea. High level caps just give an advantage to grinders. You can't be competitive if you don't constantly get more XP. In GW, the cap is so low (20) that someone with 50 hours played can have access to the same armor and skills, and have the exact same stats, as someone with 500 hours in the game. The 500 hour guy just has a large selection of skills to choose from, giving him more <b>options</b>, but not more <b>power</b>. I hope you don't mean unlimited levels, where each level makes you more powerful.
Also, I love the idea that more agility gives you a faster running speed. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While those games give good examples to the low level caps, I'm making sure its hard to get to higher levels. Its not just "Level up level up level up level up"- at certain intervals, you must unlock the next several levels. The first is at level 60: That will unlock you to level 100. At level 100, you must unlock to level 120. Then to unlock level 130. Then 135. Then 140, and 145, and 150. At 150, you must unlock for EVERY SINGLE LEVEL after that.
Unlocks(all of them) will be hard, with the final hard one being 150, which will be nigh on impossible.
With the Ascension system, you continue unlocking the levels to continue powering yourself as you get higher and higher. I'm going to personally be designing the level unlocks up to 151, at which you'll be doing "Collection" quests of the PvP kind: "Find and Kill 1000 of the Enemy, and bring back a remnant of each." Also, alignment may affect this. Evil characters will be influenced to kill certain people, and good may be influenced to kill certain people. And yes, being Good or Evil will have its rewards, and no, Evil is not just from killing bad people, its also from ordering people to do bad things, or stealing and the such.
I'm hoping that our content will be enough to get people to constantly be working, instead of 'having fun slaughtering lowbies'. Also, there will be other ways I protect the youngin's, like Guards(for the lower-highbies), as well as a few things that will really, really suck for highbies.
For one, GMs will be physically in low level zones all the time.(low level zones are 1-50). GMs will take the place of Gods, and will actually become visible and attack a player that is heavily griefing. And while it IS possible to kill a GM(!), you've gotta be very high level. Eventually, we'll just wall the character off from the spot. I want to allow them to slaughter youngin's, but griefing isn't allowed.
Not to mention, I'm hoping the story I design for the game can grab people as much as I'm hoping. I was actually going to have the story be following the highest level player, with 8 or 9 GMs traveling with him/her, doing the story. I'll be sure to make it plenty dramatic.
More or less, I'm just trying to keep them to getting higher, and better, through lively content. The Ascension system is rewarding, but I won't make it all powerful. If the GMs have to(cause I'm sure we'll be getting a level 1000 character eventually) I'll personally be getting up to slaughter their ****.
And to dispel something: Your levels make you exponentially higher, but not invicible. If a Epic fight is going on(several characters against one, and their all in the higher tiers) players will vote for each, and each vote will up a stat by 1%, getting that character damn powerful.
Yes, totally unlimited levels. But I'm wanting to get rid of that word "Endgame"- it makes developers ignore the content for lower people, as well. I'm wanting them ALL to be enjoying the game as much as possible, not worrying about "Reaching the Cap". Not to mention, it'll only be the skilled people busting the caps anyway. Being its a 100% action based combat system, it will require skill. The stats just influence how much you do XD
I haven't fully fleshed out my ideas, so it might end up to suck as a concept, but basically my idea is a Western-style MMO. It occured to me that the old west seems to be exactly the sort of setting that most MMO games end up emulating.
Think about it, every MMO tends to have:
-PKers (outlaws)
-Anti-PKers (the law)
-Consentual PVP (quick-draw duels, bar-room brawls)
-Crafting (blacksmiths, gunsmiths, miners)
-PVE (fighting da injuns)
Basically the game would be something like Neocron 2 in style, except it wouldn't suck. Skill gain would be possible, but never anything which directly improves your ability to kill, i.e, you can get a skill which allows you to draw quicker or reload faster, but not one to make you fire faster or be more accurate.
The game would probably be set in a fictional world with a western theme, not the actual old west. This allows some liberties to be taken with the story. This would also allow the game to contain a variety of NPC monsters to fight in order to keep the game interesting; you can't fight the indians ALL the time.
Death would be WoW style, with only a minor penalty; ala your equipment becomes slightly worn and you appear at the nearest graveyard/doctor's practice. Speaking of equipment, there would be all the basics you'd expect such as trade tools (axes, pickaxes, blacksmithing hammers e.t.c), knives (both thrown and non-thrown), handguns, rifles and blunderbusses, plus cool hats and boots which don't do anything other than look cool. No armour or "medpacks", but perhaps health that regenerates over time with items which increase that regeneration rate.
You would start the game as a civvie with no skills, and work your way up from there. Experience could be gained by fighting the aforementioned monsters or the "indians", or by crafting. Obviously crafting only increases crafting skill, which is seperate from regular skill, WoW style. You can either remain a civvie, or join one of the two factions.
If you join the law, you can form a Posse and set out on various missions; kill 10 Injuns, collect 20 generic monster carcasses, hunt for joe bloggs, who could either be a real player outlaw or an NPC, e.t.c.
If you join the outlaws you'll take a hit to your reputation, which would basically be a measure of... well... your reputation. You will be shot on sight if you enter certain towns with a low rep, but then there are always a few run-down lawless towns for the outlaws to hang around in, just like in the movies. Once your reputation reaches a certain level you can be shot on sight by anyone, otherwise you have to have commited a crime within a certain timeframe to be targeted.
Basic activities for the outlaws would include bank robberies, holding up a stage coach, train robberies, breaking prisoners out of jail, assasinating the sherrif/mayor/someone important e.t.c. These would be available in both PVP and PVE flavours.
A PVE mission simply features NPC outlaws/lawmen to fight, whilst a PVP mission is basically an instanced mission.
Example:
Joe Bloggs is in a posse with 3 other lawmen. He is the leader of the group and they decide to start a PVP mission. They go to the Saloon and check the noticeboard and see:
<u>Jobs available in Generic City</u>
-Protect the stage coach [1/3] (5 max)
-Protect the stage coach [5/5] (full)
-Defend the Sherrif [0/5] (5 max)
-Jailbreak! [0/3] (10 max)
-Catch the cattle rustlers [6/3] (full)
Where [x/x] indicates the number of lawmen/outlaws in the mission.
They join the first mission on the list, and join the mission's "lobby". Whoever joins the mission first becomes the host, who can decide when to start the game, but can only do so if the teams are even. Missions could be shared between cities if lack of players proved to be a problem.
Another aspect of consentual PVP would be duels and brawls. Duels would be between 2 players, with the ground rules being agreed to by both players before the duels began. The duel could be, for example, a fistfight, a gun battle, a knife fight, or just anything goes.
A brawl would be initiated in much the same way as a PVP mission, with people joining via a lobby system. There would be different sets of rules to choose from, i.e, fists only, no guns, no knives e.t.c, as well as the option of a team brawl or a free-for-all. Naturally, anyone can join a brawl, even civvies, and yes, lawmen can fight lawmen in the spirit of drunken chaos.
So... what do you think? I kind of wish I had the ability to make this happen now... but a year spent learning delphi and caml light does not a master programmer make.
*edit* Spelling
Gain a set amount for defeating NPC monsters/outlaws/lawmen e.t.c, shared between the group if you're in one, also awarded xp depending on your performance in an instanced mission/brawl. I can imagine brawls becoming the standard way for newbies to gain xp, as you'd be able to gain reasonable xp using only your two fists <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Duels would not give XP, as otherwise you could just duel the same person over and over and farm XP.
*EDIT
Ok, i've got some time on my hands, so i'll elaborate on a few points.
Xp would not be a major focus of the game; money would. Naturally the dollar would be the standard currency, with bartering coming a close second. With your money you would be able to buy different equipment, which i'll discuss later, as well as cosmetic things like hats, boots, gloves e.t.c. I'd like a high enough level of customisation that no two players would look alike. Naturally you would be able to buy horses of varying quality, which would be required for some missions such as holding up the stage coach (jumping from horse to stage coach action FTW). Combat from horseback would be possible, and would be awesome. The final thing you could buy with your hard-earned cash is your very own home. Starting players would have only instanced appartments, with players who progress further getting access to houses of various sizes which can be visited by other players, pending your permission. A large area would have to be set aside for player housing, lest my game suffer the same fate as Ultima Online, with houses infesting every square inch of ground and costing several million gold coins.
Now back to equipment. Your equipment should ideally not give you an advantage over an opponent. I.e, you can buy a more powerful gun than your enemy's, but expect it to also be less accurate or have a smaller ammo capacity to compensate.
I still haven't decided about weapon upgrades; one player should beat another because he is better, not because he has the better gun. On the other hand, we need something for those crafters to do. Naturally a gun should still always beat a knife or bare hands at long range, so i'd have to make a rock-paper-scissors kind of system, i.e,
Rifle beats everything at long range due to greater damage and accuracy.
Rifle loses to everything at melee range (as it would have a long reload time).
Pistol beats rifle up close and at short range due to higher ammo capacity.
Pistol beats knife at long range due to... well... range.
Knife/fists beats pistol and rifle at melee range.
Knife can also be thrown if skill points are invested in throwing knives.
Ideally i'd like to see someone who invests skill points in brawling becoming easily the better of an unskilled knife wielder.
I'd also like a deus-ex style damage system whereby shooting someone in the leg won't kill them, but will slow them down a lot. Headshots shoud result in increased damage, but not instant kills. This is an MMO, not counterstrike. On that note, bunnyhopping would be punishable by death. At the very least i'd have to implement a stamina bar ala DoD and Planetside. I'd also not make the same mistake that Battlefield 2 did and make sure you CANT JUMP WHEN YOUR STAMINA BAR IS EMPTY! Currently in BF2 jumping reduces your stamina, but it doesn't stop you from jumping again the moment you land.
*Edit to answer Sub Zero's question
Skills would allow you to use new items of equipment; without the skill you would not even be allowed to hold the item (ala planetside) although you would be able to keep it in your inventory. Basic skills would include
-Pistol use
-Brawling
-Rifle use
-Knife use
-Knife throwing
-Dynamite use (think of it as a grenade)
If this wasn't enough, I could always split the rifles and pistols into several different catagorys such as blunderbusses, muskets e.t.c.
These would be the basic skills which allow you to use stuff. Once you have these you would be able to learn advanced techniques along the same "tree" such as:
-Pistol quick-loading, Pistol quick-drawing, Pistol-whip (melee with pistol), akimbo pistols (larger clip capacity and faster rate of fire offset by lower accuracy; ideally accuracy should be lowered to the extent that an akimbo pistol user is on par with a single pistol user).
-Headbutt, chair use, broken bottle use (oh yeah)
-Rifle quick-loading, rifle-butt
-Akimbo knife use (oh yeah), backstab (extra damage from behind)
You get the idea. There would only be about 20 "levels" of experience, so you would have to specialise in order to make the most of your character. Crafting XP would not count against this limit.
Anyway...
Wuxia Online (use wikipedia if you have trouble deciphering the stuffs)
On the box cover:
"A monumental MMORPG covering 4000 years of Chinese history. Choose your family and nationality (Han, Mongol, Jin, Dali), start or join existing major clans (Shaolin, Wutan, Emei, Huashan, Kunlun). Determine the fate of your family line, establish the lines of distinguished soldiers, scholars, strategists.
Be the part of history as the story progresses from the Warring States period, to Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing.
Through the players action and influences, new dynasties arise, permanently changing the game world. Be a part of the Mongol Invader, join the farmer rebellions against the Qin dynasty.
Earn reputations, estates, martial art styles, and pass on to your kins."