Imagine a Chess MMORPG

Speculations on a Chess MMORPG;

I thought we could all have fun speculating about what this might be like. I’ve given a lot of thought to it and it seems pretty fun to imagine.

My initial rough sketches to kick off discussion:

So imagine a marriage between Chess.com and a World of Warcraft or Guildwars style, or Second life style interface.

When you create a non-paying account you start as a basic human in the virtual landscape – leather tunic, minor initial customization (facial hair, gender, skin tone). Paying members would have a wider expanse of customization (Ray_Brooks actually appears as a virtual Dracula, Hiemuffinman as an actual anthropomorphic Muffin, etc).

You’re able to run around into different areas and walk up to people or what have you – when you are within a certain proximity you’re prompted to initiate chat, challenges, etc. If you accept a challenge both characters sit down and the board zooms in on the game – when you make moves you see your characters hand make the move. You can set the game to private or observable – so people could mill about and check games out.

Paying members could create customized “chess café’s” ie. they own a building/plot of land – you could walk on over to the Dream Team headquarters or wander down to the Chess Spartan’s War hall.

The way “Quests” might work:

If you wander out of the main city and towards the countryside, you might see an old man NPC who calls you over if you wander into his proximity. He tells you that he’ll reward you if you solve a puzzle (it’s a mate in 6 or somesuch), or maybe he says his daughter has been kidnapped by such and such an ogre who you’ll have to defeat in a game of chess to save. Basically it would be like chess mentor and tactics trainer built into a storyline.

Unlockable armour:

If you play 20 games wherein you utilize the Sicillian defence at a certain ranking, you unlock the “Sicillian Knight” armour, which you’re able to wear kindof awards. This would be character flair that demonstrates what type of playing style your character prefers.

Unlockable boards:

Everyone begins the game with a basic wooden board. Certain triggers like “played X # of games, # number of wins” or quests (defeated the Vizier of Hogarth) would unlock more interesting/cool boards – golden, gem entrusted dealies.

Levels:

This is where I think the brilliance of the Chess MMORPG really demonstrates itself. The main frustration in playing these games is that some 12 year old can just grind away killing monsters and become level whatever. In the Chess MMORPG your real-world skills actually reflect in the game world – a grandmaster could walk right in and be a big deal, whipping through the game. So your “level” would approximate your real world rating. It would make actually “finishing” the game next to impossible for most players as the storyline would ramp up in play difficulty (ever more difficult computer AI’s assigned to the NPC bosses). So – one part interactive chess tutorial (I imagine in the very first room after customizing a character they meet an npc who offers to teach them piece movement and then insists they solve a mate-in-one before progressing), one part social networking site, and one part role playing game with storylines and unlockable rewards.

This combines all the appeal of the MMO graphics interface with the skill based aspect of chess. Imagine how immersive the experience would be. Graphical interface models are available out there for customization now. Someone could really implement this.

The top unlockable board has to be the Montglane Service. Read The Eight if you don't know what I'm talking about.

This really sounds kind of silly imo.

Well, it could sound somewhat silly, sure. Lots of imagination experiments are silly. "If you were on a desert island and could only bring..." or "Let's use paper and pencils to create characters and role play them..." or "Let's pretend these wooden pieces are soldiers and fight them..."

Geez. Lots of things in life are silly. Play is silly. Just let yourself be imaginitive, manny.

that is possibly one of the most awesome ideas i've ever heard.

get somebody on it! pronto! please! i wanna play this thing!

Now that's a MMORPG I'd actually play.

Oh man! I really wanna play this game! ;)

To be honest I saw the heading and thought this is going to be dumb.  Than I read Rael's post and was intrigued.  Get Erik to make it.  I bet he plays WOW.

Awesome, I would never have thought up something this great !

And I'm positive a lot of people would play this !

This sounds interesting. I would like the idea of trying to introduce elements similar to leveling up; in WoW and other games, it is probably too heavily depending on playing alot and accumilating experience and abilities. However, a few abilities thrown into the mix would make things more interesting and give more incentive than just rating to play.

For example, maybe the Sicilian Armor or a Sicilian spell could be used on move 2 to force the game, no matter what the opponent played, into the position after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3. It would be a nice way to force people out of book. It would also be instructive, as it means that you may have to play openings which are not part of your normal repitorie.

Or perhaps a magic spell or scroll or whatnot that would add an extra minute to your clock. The scroll could be a prize obtained after a quest.

I think this would leave the basic idea of the game and the integrity of chess intact, but add some interesting twists. The idea of a takeback also comes to mind, but that would have to be a very rare and powerful iteam.

Ooh! Ooh! And we get to slay goblins with pointy bishops later, right? Like, bishop swords, and we'll slide around on rooks, but only downhill.

dudes.  make it happen.  we could ahve a fundraiser to pay someone to do this.  or we coudl go steal some of blizzard's talent or ask runescape devopers how they did it.  in any case, this NEEDS to happen.  lets create a facebook group and if we get enough ppl, someone will just have to make it for lucrative opportunities.

And there'd be a in game economy, and you can wager on games!

This seems like a great idea, honestly. The "levels" you speak of could simply be a chess rating... that would be the most logical thing in my mind. Something similar to Chess.com... start out at 1200... or maybe actually have a "level 0" signifying "unrated..." I dunno. I would play it, though, I think. If I had enough programming experience, I'd program it myself!

I second that. Facebook group = good idea here. Anyone up to the task of moderating it?

Okay, back to reality. I doubt this will be made.

That's what people said about Fallout 3.

Facebook group, then contact small game development companies. If we can have eri kshow an interest, then the developer would have a greater incentive (working on behalf of Chess.com).

Scores in-game could be easily intergrated into our accounts (Online Chess rating, Live Chess rating, Interactive rating).

Very interesting and some great ideas. This would also make a lot more people interested in chess. I would definitely check out the game. Somebody please put a link here when the Facebook group has been created?

I'm working on the Facebook group right now. I'll have the link up in a few minutes.