Just a few more possibly (but probably not) unique ideas for mmorpg’s.
Concurrency
The whole world is already populated, when a person joins they take over from the ai and when they leave the ai takes back over.
Characters can be non-current, each time you log in you can make a ‘character’ and select a location, the server will try to match you to a character already in existance, it will be modified to fit your description, but the computer will try to be as close as possible to the original character. High unique characters will then get shared, eg Gandalf in a Lord of the Rings rpg.
Never having more than 1/3rd of the population of the world human. This way it could be possible to have a global influence, to be able to create wars with an admin tool and all the ai’s will play their part in creating what you want. If you want one side to win, their swords will be slightly sharper, the opposition will be slightly weaker etc. AI can also act as police, keeping the balance.
Points Allocation
The idea of experience points to be converted into a more general ‘points’ currency.
With these points you can allocate them to different abilities when you join the game. They can be used to ‘buy’ strengh, armor, weapons, abilities. You never level up in one game, you always stay the same - can heal yourself but not very well. The whole idea is to live out the life of one part of the world. Instead of super powerful people wandering around, you will get weak men - who can die, but you have to make the best of what you have in a war.
Influence
When you accumulate a certain amount of ‘points’ you can start spending them on ‘influence’. This is an ability that allows you to lead a mob, or an army. To influence another actor (or person) you need to allocate how much influence you spend on them. Higher intelligence beings need more influence to get them to do things. You can spread your influence thin - a unorganised mob, or thick - a tight hit squad. It is easy to get an army of unorganised orcs to march, but they will get slaughtered by fewer men. Huge creatures can be told what to do easily, but they sometimes make mistakes, and rampage - killing your army and the others army.
It is also possible to influence your enemy, making them terrified and run away. You have to balance your influence between you - if you die then obviously you can’t win the war, your army - they have to be strong and your enemy - you want them to be scared. Different things can increase and decrease your influence, having a big army makes your influence ‘go further’ when weakening your enemies.
Getting Points
If another player tells you to do something, it will show up and some indication of how much influence involved will be visible (transparency?). If you follow their orders, you get more ‘points’, if you disobey you either loose points, or nothing happens. Exactly what happens depends on your character. If you are an orc, then you actually get rewarded for having a fight with other orcs. You get points for being in character, a great idea for a sucessful rpg. If you want people to stay in character, then reward them for it. If you are a mighty commander and you win a war, then you get more points. If you are a low grunt and your commander tells you to do something and you do, you get points. If you are a theif and steal something, you get points. The points allocation could be modifiable, if there are too many thieves make it less economical to be a theif. In one battle you may play the parts of many men, each one died - but you still get points for it.