Fantastic Parallel Reality: Touhou MMO (VN)

[lonemaestro]

Just an idea I've decided to work on for now.

Imagine an MMO VN, (massively multiplayer visual novel), where you play as a character. A quiz is taken after you decide on a character, to see if you really know enough to take on her role. (Storytelling and stage skills, as well as considerable knowledge of Touhou is a must!) Characters to play are ranked by difficulty - for example, Marisa would be "Hard" because it takes work to mimic her mocking and funny character.
The player does not walk around in a bird's eye map and fight monsters to get exp, like an RPG. A "room" is just represented by a panorama image, where certain events can be triggered by clicking certain parts of the room (think Professor Layton).

To prevent this from becoming one messy chat room, the max number of players in a room is capped, and conversation is one-on-one only (unless two+ characters form a "party"). Sprites with different emotions are used (similar to the canon games)

Basically, it's an attempt at bringing Gensokyo to life. More stuff can be added later on, but I just wanted to lay down the fundamentals. Music, sounds, and graphics will be from non-canon sources (according to ZUN's legal terms).

Major work will be required for the sprites and panoramas, a little less work in programming (I'm a computer science major and I think I have this covered) but overall I think it's doable.

My concern would be low player turnout. Would anyone be interested in playing? Why, or why not? Suggestions welcome. Helping hands may be considered.

[Desu_Cake]

I'm not really sure I understand what you're trying to do with this idea.
You say it's a VN, which implies an overarching story, but there's no mention of a story at all.
There's a couple of MMOVNs out there, but I haven't seen any that really integrate the VN with the MMO. Will this one?
Speaking of which, what is the point of the MMO part? As in, what do players get out of it, besides a chat?
The most important thing though would be that I'm not sure if it's viable to have the players in charge of keeping in-character. The quiz at the start would show that they could roleplay the character, but what is there to make sure that they do?
I couldn't really say whether I'd play or not until I know more about it.

[KrackoCloud]

So basically it's like a visually-augmented RP?

[Lukesky180]

Sounds interesting, would be more if the battles taking place were really "visual".

[lonemaestro]

I'm not really sure I understand what you're trying to do with this idea.
You say it's a VN, which implies an overarching story, but there's no mention of a story at all.
There's a couple of MMOVNs out there, but I haven't seen any that really integrate the VN with the MMO. Will this one?
Speaking of which, what is the point of the MMO part? As in, what do players get out of it, besides a chat?
The most important thing though would be that I'm not sure if it's viable to have the players in charge of keeping in-character. The quiz at the start would show that they could roleplay the character, but what is there to make sure that they do?
I couldn't really say whether I'd play or not until I know more about it.

To be honest, I'm not too sure about the VN part. The concept first came to me when I thought of players being able to save conversations, which could then be replayed like a VN. But in the end it IS role-playing after all. Originally, it was designed to be an incident game, so the "story" would be an incident, and some characters would have a role in it. Before that gets implemented in later phases, I just wanted to have a plain old "world" with no incident, to get things started.

Yes, sorry for not mentioning, in the later phases of the game (I plan to release the game in phases), there's also the option of a danmaku duel with other players. My current idea is to have players play against an AI, STG style, and whoever dies first will lose the battle, and whoever defeats the AI first will win that battle.

Again, I'm only focused on the fundamentals right now. But in the end, it's all those extra features that would make it attractive (?).

There is no way to guarantee that anyone will be a good role-player. I guess the "good-intentioned" players can have the option of reporting/flagging a misbehavior, but it is completely up to the player's discretion both ways, and the quiz is just one way to filter out the "bad" players. Designing the quizzes would be another hurdle.

Any further questions/ideas are welcome.

[Genso]

So basically it's like a visually-augmented RP?

My thoughts exactly. Although I like the idea, there are always the problems that arise with RP-type activities. As mentioned earlier, some people may not play the role they are meant to play (although the occasional divergence can be interesting). Then these the problem of how frequently players can be online. So you can get someone who can play Marisa super well, but she'll hardly appear because the person playing as her may be constantly busy in real life. Also, the presentation of the character is another matter and depends if you want a canonical representation or a fanonical representation of a character (I've read doujinshi from almost 250 circles and all the official print works and there are sometimes small or big differences).

Kinda reminds me of the Touhou "For Busy People" fangames.

[lonemaestro]

Then these the problem of how frequently players can be online. So you can get someone who can play Marisa super well, but she'll hardly appear because the person playing as her may be constantly busy in real life. Also, the presentation of the character is another matter and depends if you want a canonical representation or a fanonical representation of a character (I've read doujinshi from almost 250 circles and all the official print works and there are sometimes small or big differences).

Kinda reminds me of the Touhou "For Busy People" fangames.

True, there can only be one person who can play a character (besides fairies/ghosts), but when a role is not fulfilled, then there is a default location + default interaction with that character, like the NPCs in any RPG. Sorry for not going in-depth As for the players who are confused as to which character they should play as, they'll know somehow... heheh.

This is meant to adhere to canon as much as possible. Fanon interpretations are just too many, and too inconsistent. Once again, pardon the weak language, but we can only hope they have sufficient knowledge of canon.

[Kenta Kurodani]

This gave me an idea. If you are chatting someone and either are feeling fighty, or the two of you get pissed at each other, you could implement something akin to a PoFV Vs. Match

[Imosa]

I don't think I want to pretend to be a Touhou for very long. In the end I'd like to carve out my own identity. If I was just playing as a character I might as well replace myself with an AI. Also, this reminds me of Touhou profiles on Facebook. I thought about trying to get one of those.

[Genso]

Also, this reminds me of Touhou profiles on Facebook. I thought about trying to get one of those.

Oh yeah, I remember those. My friend has a Komachi one and I remember talking with a Kogasa on a few occasions. And I kinda agree, making it your own does add to the excitement as long as the characters are well played. Then again, you can just make an OC if you want something like that.

[Imosa]

Oh yeah, I remember those. My friend has a Komachi one and I remember talking with a Kogasa on a few occasions. And I kinda agree, making it your own does add to the excitement as long as the characters are well played. Then again, you can just make an OC if you want something like that.

I guess if OCs are available it's all fine. I always thought that if I owned an RPG, I would let trusted people take control of NPCs and do with them whatever normal players do, within character. Go on a quest or whatever.

[lonemaestro]

OCs are an option.
User-uploaded expressions, and user-specified default locations and optional default interactions.
...The way things are going, looks like all the canon Touhous will be NPC's while everyone plays as their own character.

OC image quality and personality completely up to player discretion... unless I designate a filter of some kind.

[Genso]

OCs are an option.
User-uploaded expressions, and user-specified default locations and optional default interactions.
...The way things are going, looks like all the canon Touhous will be NPC's while everyone plays as their own character.

OC image quality and personality completely up to player discretion... unless I designate a filter of some kind.

I'm not sure if this is really a good idea. I wasn't actually suggesting OCs, just giving a supplement answer. Then again, it's your call to do as you wish if you think it'll work (watch out for "Mary Sues").

[lonemaestro]

I'm not sure if this is really a good idea. I wasn't actually suggesting OCs, just giving a supplement answer. Then again, it's your call to do as you wish if you think it'll work (watch out for "Mary Sues").

OC's were already on the agenda. The original plan was to have the player needing enough playing experience and pass a much-harder general knowledge quiz to be "rewarded" an OC.
Mary/Gary Sues are no match for some of the harder canon characters, you know... heheh. After all, there's going to be a limit to how powerful an OC's attacks can be. Or, you can have multiple Mary/Gary Sues duke it out on the battlefield

[Genso]

OC's were already on the agenda. The original plan was to have the player needing enough playing experience and pass a much-harder general knowledge quiz to be "rewarded" an OC.

That sounds fine actually, although this sounds interesting itself. Maybe PC-98 knowledge should be included to add higher difficulty?

Or, you can have multiple Mary/Gary Sues duke it out on the battlefield

Oh God...what have you done?!

[Prime32]

Isn't this just a MUD?

[SuccinctAndPunchy]

There's a couple of MMOVNs out there,

Wait, there are? Care to name them so I can get an idea of what an MMOVN even is?

I can't even fathom what that would play like. These two genres seem inherently incompatible to me.

[Desu_Cake]

The only one I can think of at the moment is Sentou Gakuen. It's not exactly brilliant though, and yeah, the two genres are pretty incompatible.