Social networking browser-based MMORPG

[Jackolantern]

I have been tossing around this idea for a couple of days now and wanted to know what other people thought. What if you had a browser-based MMORPG (such as one made with PHP like Halls tutorial covers) that also served as a social networking site? For example, the user profiles could be split in two different sections, with player's character profiles being one part and the player's themselves could be linked to it. Each social networking "group" could be a guild, with players being allowed to join multiple guilds. You could create a friend's list, leave messages on other's profiles, and do other social networking-ish type things.

The gameplay itself could be linked to the socialization experience. For example, maybe certain activities or achievements (such as earning specific levels, or gaining entrance to high-end areas) that the player completes could gain them access to exclusive server-maintained guilds to meet other people who are working on the same content or have the same game-oriented interests that they have, with the goal to have them becoming OOC friends as well.

MMORPGs themselves are basically social networking entities, but I would want to add in more social networking website services into the game. I am still fleshing out the idea and more ways to join the two, though. Anyone have any thoughts about this?

[hallsofvallhalla]

i could see this being very popular. Many people choose MMORPGS over single player games for the social networking. It would bring a whole new meaning to guilds too.

[Torniquet]

depends how much of a 'social network site' you want to make of it.

i found generally (not with all cases) that people go to play MMOs to play a role of some1 and express that character to everyone else as they see fit, no one beleives that ech other is really who they say they are because of this reason. friendships develope and sometimes the real person it exposed to a select few people.

thus playing a game and 'pretending' to be some1 they are not because they generally dont want to disclose who they really are. people who know me over the internet would have a huge ass shock if they was to meet me irl. Torniquet and Sable are my main 2 online aliese (or how ever you spell it lol).

social networking is generally used to keep intouch with friendsand make new friends through exsisting friends and get to know the 'real' person.

if a person wants to tell people who they are irl from inside a game. then they talk on a one to one basis and that info in most cases is kept between the people inside the conversation. where as on a network site. its displayed for all to see (well some key points in some cases)

dont get me wrong. i think its a great idea to a point. but in game most people show a made up persona. and enimies can be made (i should know... i have plenty out there from games i have played) and 99% of them dont know where to start lookin to get my personal details, FB info, MSN etc. and frankly thats the way i liek it lol. because in todays society people take things that happen in game personally and have takin it into irl situations. linking these 2 bits of information can prove to be a real mistake. if halls stole something from me and i took the game serious enough, all i would have to do is look into his social network details which is linked to his game char and i have a good start for hunting him down and making some payback.

sorry if i have mis understood what ya sayin jack. but that is my number one problem with linking the 2 together in such a way.

and tbh facebook all ready offers MMOs (mob wars, dragon wars, vampire wars, girl wars, car wars, mosters, pirate wars. plus more)

i started out making a social network site. but soon gave up on it because trying to compete with others out there which would offer 10x more than i could think of at the point (al tho i have thought of one idea... but im keepin tht to myself :p)

in regards to my 1st question on depending how much of a 'social networking site' you want to make it.... if you give them the chance to upload stuff you could end up paying through the nose for dedicated hosting to be able to handle all of the data uploaded.

any whos. thts my thoughts :p

dont wanna burst ya bubble, feel free to give it ago, but be vry carful with personal details and online gaming. the cardinal rule is not to trust ANYONE in an online game with anything, because u dont really know the real person. hell i have seen irl mates stich each other up

[Jackolantern]

i found generally (not with all cases) that people go to play MMOs to play a role of some1 and express that character to everyone else as they see fit, no one beleives that ech other is really who they say they are because of this reason. friendships develope and sometimes the real person it exposed to a select few people.

That has really not been my experience. Almost all of the people I know (and I mean, people I know in real life) that play MMOs are genuine with the people they meet if they decide to talk to them OOC. I am also genuine. Of course some people will give others complete crap info, but there is a good chance that these same people have crap info on their MySpace and Facebook, too. I have never met anyone that I know of who give crap info for the hell of it. Most are trying to get something or look good in front of others, and those types of people will likely give false info and background on any service.

social networking is generally used to keep intouch with friendsand make new friends through exsisting friends and get to know the 'real' person.

Both MySpace and Facebook specifically cater to keeping in touch with real-life friends, but not all of them do. Many out there actually cater to just meeting new people. It mostly has to do with the services they offer. Most of the SN sites that cater to meeting new people do not have people look-ups that use real names or cities (although you could possibly have players forming guilds for certain regions or states), for example. Instead, they offer advanced ways of meeting new people. Most of the sites that are designed this way are light-years ahead of both MySpace and Facebook as far as offering you new people to talk to. Not that MySpace or Facebook are worried about that, because that is not their targeted market segment.

if a person wants to tell people who they are irl from inside a game. then they talk on a one to one basis and that info in most cases is kept between the people inside the conversation. where as on a network site. its displayed for all to see (well some key points in some cases)

Well, it would probably not be your average WoW player who would be a potential player. More than likely, it would be some MMO players along with some bored MySpacers, Facebookers, etc. Also, the profiles would only be as much info as someone wants to give. I would not think about even offering fields for people to give their actual address or anything like that. And if people don't want to give certain pieces of data, they don't have to.

dont get me wrong. i think its a great idea to a point. but in game most people show a made up persona. and enimies can be made (i should know... i have plenty out there from games i have played) and 99% of them dont know where to start lookin to get my personal details, FB info, MSN etc. and frankly thats the way i liek it lol. because in todays society people take things that happen in game personally and have takin it into irl situations. linking these 2 bits of information can prove to be a real mistake. if halls stole something from me and i took the game serious enough, all i would have to do is look into his social network details which is linked to his game char and i have a good start for hunting him down and making some payback.

I can definitely understand that. The multi-player aspects of gameplay would likely have to be focused more on socialization. There is probably a slew of design decisions that could be made to help prevent confrontation between players as well. No kill stealing, no ability to "ninja" items, no death penalties, blind item auctions, and more. A focus could be giving people large benefits from helping each other, but only mild consequences if one player messes up. These are probably the kinds of design choices that should be made anyway if a major focus of the game is social networking.

and tbh facebook all ready offers MMOs (mob wars, dragon wars, vampire wars, girl wars, car wars, mosters, pirate wars. plus more)

These are just side-games that really have nothing to do with the social networking aspect. They are basically just browser-based games played within a Facebook or MySpace frame.

i started out making a social network site. but soon gave up on it because trying to compete with others out there which would offer 10x more than i could think of at the point (al tho i have thought of one idea... but im keepin tht to myself :p)

That is why a new social networking site has to do something to stand out and be different We aren't going to even get a piece of the pie by just trying to beat them with features that would work in their sites. If it did work, they would just add it. These are..what...multi-billion dollar companies? The only way to get noticed at this stage of the game is to do something radically different.

in regards to my 1st question on depending how much of a 'social networking site' you want to make it.... if you give them the chance to upload stuff you could end up paying through the nose for dedicated hosting to be able to handle all of the data uploaded.

It would probably only allow a limited amount of pictures. If you start letting people upload files, songs, and other data files, you are not only going to pay huge hosting fees, but you will likely have a copyright lawsuit as well.

dont wanna burst ya bubble, feel free to give it ago, but be vry carful with personal details and online gaming. the cardinal rule is not to trust ANYONE in an online game with anything, because u dont really know the real person. hell i have seen irl mates stich each other up

Oh, no, I won't be making it. That is far too much work than the time I am going to have for the foreseeable future. Not only that, but I also have some bigger and better (I hope) ideas to work on lol. I was just throwing it out to see what other people would think. Thanks for the feedback!

[ArmisticeML]

Do you mean sort of like gaia?

[Jackolantern]

Do you mean sort of like gaia?

I'm not exactly sure. I saw gaia listed on Wikipedia's list of social networks, but I am not sure to what extent it acts as a social networking site, and to what extent it is a game. I have not had time to check it out, though.

[jpoisson]

Umm, At one point Battlemagica.com had the social networking frame work al done and working Scott and Brad the developers said it was a complete success except that unless you can bring something different to the table it is almost impossible to keep the Social network to have growing numbers. Facebook and others social networks have games like what you would make and the dominating leader in the evelopment of them is zynga.

so unless you can offer something all the other cant you are really out of luck.

[Jackolantern]

Honestly, I am not doing this project and had no plans to. I was really just talking about it from a theoretical standpoint. However, I think something like this could have a shot if it is advertised as a game, and not as a social network. Facebook and MySpace have games, but they are not a game. FB and MS have a multitude of PHP and Flash-based games, but there is no one single game that unifies the social networking experience on their services. If the site is focused as a game first and a social network second, it may have some potential.

[ZeroComp]

google forum rpg you could get some ideas from there