Religion:
Now, I'm not advocating religion, but by itself, it offers a huge chance to provide lore in a rather non-invasive way in game. Churches in game are in random areas, some in certain towns. They each worship their very own god, different from all the rest and usually based on an element or the like (Death, Life, Creation, The wind...). These gods would all have their own lore, and be rivals, friends with others, but it would be a sort of daily quest for players.
Players would first begin by entering the church as a regular person. If interested in joining the church, players could request to be invited by an already existing member of a certain rank. The player would be asked to read the lore, and the existing member would test the player with a few questions based on the lore. If the player answered enough correctly, he would be allowed to join.
The church is a place that, once joined, offers a few options to players. You can come and pray every day for a some experience. You can opt to pray for items instead, receiving return scrolls to the town or area it's based in, or other such options. Every time you pray, your faith stat rises slightly, which determines your rank in the church. Reaching higher ranks grants you the ability to invite new players, receive more experience for praying, and even pray for the god to bless you with a large buff, or bless you with an item based on your god (ex. Dwenya's cuffs, Shyia's belt...).
Certain players of rank can once a week (no more than once a week at all) have a special ceremony in the church called 'Mass'. Mass involves gathering players from the church into the pews as the person hosting the event talks about the lore and such of their god and tells a story that must last a certain time minimum. when Mass is over, each players that joined the room for mass will acquire a significant exp. gift, and a small blessing buff. Mass would be a chance for players to essentially hold their own small events, and teach different lore each week, totally dependent from staff.
Of course if players chose to just hold mass and do nothing, or invite new players and not test them, certain players of rank could request staff to banish them from the church, preventing those players from even being able to enter the church for a period of time and removing all of their faith.
Lose faith, and the ranks acquired with it, slowly, by not attending church to pray.
Profile:
Most servers use the (right click) classic profile, showing age, and various comments. In an RPG, the profile should be used to show player level, certain stats, and basic information. This is also a place for a player to show off, having a tab to show their legend, and a place to show off their hard earned equipment.
The players legend would be a kind of diary. It would hold the date in which the player was born (when the chara. was created) as a first entry. Each entry after that would be earned by a hard quest, or something different;
Aeko was born on the 2nd day of Deoch 19.
Aeko was killed by a Poison Slime (Level 2).
Aeko renounced citizenship of Alredge.
Aeko became a citizen of New Alexandria!
Aeko helped the queen overcome her illness.
Aeko attended the Church of Ifits Mass.
Aeko married Chompy, 14th day of Deoch 22.
Aeko divorced Chompy, 15th Day of Deoch 22.
Aeko completed the journey to the desert island of kings.
Starting Out:
I've always enjoyed games where a player starts on a certain sort of beginners island, or Novice area, and when they reach a certain level, they decid on a class and are granted passage to the main continent (or choose to stay and level to 99 in the noob area
)
Classes and Advancement:
Classes and advancement are two sought after goals in an rpg. As such, I believe a fair number of classes should be offered, the new classes being an occasionally (rare) update. Advancements should come in modest time, for example going from Novice, choosing Archer, and eventually become a Ranger, and then a high leveled Sniper.
Upon reaching each advancement, the player would be rewarded with new skills to place skill points acquired through leveling into.
Upon the higher levels, based on a system with 100 levels, a player would get a final decision ~lv95. To choose to Master their class (becoming Master Sniper...) and advance to lvl 100 while obtaining several new powerful skills, or choose to dual class, starting anew at lvl 1 (with certain skills from the old job unlocked permanently) and advance to 95 in a new class.
If a 'choose your own stat points' after leveling system were involved, the formula for certain skills would be quite different. Meaning you would be building pure STR to build a warrior of pure power, the STR improving his damaging skills, though not truly assisting in making his Defensive spells better. While a Warrior improving his VIT stat would have less damage, but amazing defense and health, and improved Defensive spells. No stat would be unused, as even going INT on a warrior would vastly improve certain warrior spells. This would allow for MUCH more diverse builds and playstyles the player could decide upon, and make choosing Mastery or Dual-classing a hard choice.
Balance would best be applied on endgame characters...
Inventory:
EVERY server I've helped has followed the same 32x32 icon grid. This offers 0 information apart from an image and maybe a name.
Please remove the Grid, make it a list, and provide the name, description or stats besides an icon. o-o...
Staff:
Don't hire co-managers. Don't have any ET/GP/FAQ/Non-dev until the server is playable. Don't worry about rights unless someone is abusive, dont attack people for idling, it makes RC look more full, and people work better when they're not alone. Don't deal with drama, just ignore it and let the person/people get over it. Don't let people get away with doing nothing and still wanting their voice heard.
o-o...
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Anyhow, I'm putting these idea's out here in the hope that someone else wants to make an rpg server like this, maybe we can get several people together
If not, then I'd love for people to at least see an idea or two here they like and perhaps use them. I'm sure if I came back in day or two I could write things I've forgotten, but I'm sort of burnt out and cant think of anything else after writing this much.
Diversity, customization, and enjoyment are three things I'd want to see in an rpg. And this is how I would do it.
