MMORPG games based on the wild west

Old thread, I know. But I'd like to see an MMO based on the feudal period of Japan. Starting your journey by aligning yourself with a Diamyo in the feudal Japan period. You perform protection and other quests for your Diamyo, and come to a point where your Diamyo dies, leading to you becoming a Rōnin. Roaming the land, choosing not to commit seppuku. You now are a sword for hire, whom upon not committing seppuku are already forced to suffer great shame. So the now warring Samurai can hire you to kill other Samurai who are in line to replace the Diamyo. With your word being worthless, as a Rōnin was, nothing you can say will matter.. and if you are caught or killed while trying to assassinate a Samurai who is in higher standing, the Samurai that hired you gets away clean.

All this of course leading to you being hired by other Samurai to kill off Diamyo you helped put in to that position, along with other quests from peasants. Protecting someone making a long travel between the regions, security detail for a supply caravan... I think it'd be a fantastic setting for an MMO. Plenty of beautiful swords, armors, locations, ideals and ideologies.

Nah, that removes the whole Ronin idea. Need to be hired by NPC's to protect convoys, and while escorting it, be able to be ambushed by players disrupting this supply to place the Diamyo they are hired to assassinate at a disadvantage.

Or be hired by a Daimyo to protect him from other Ronin trying to kill him (easy gateway for PvP).

Make it an instanced world where out in the "fields" you have a 10 player limit, and make the towns 'hubs' where you form contracts (parties for a single mission) with other Ronin. Disable combat there and increase the player count to 25 or so.

Attacking a caravan because a Samurai wants you to assassinate a Diamyo? Well, you have to make sure that convoy doesn't have player guards, that you'll have to fight on top of the traditional 'mob'. So you form a contract with a few Ronin who are trying to impeded the same Diamyo. Now you have the numbers advantage.

Give it a combat system like Nioh, speed up the pace, make characters take more along the lines of 5 to 10 hits to kill (based on armor/weapon/player skill and ability to parry).. And you have an online game I would gladly pay $20 a month to play.

Been there, done that. Nothing like it.

No, that's more of an arena game.

We're talking a combat system not unlike this. Pick up the pacing a small bit, along with the other changes I noted. Allowing players to make a contract with 10 other Ronin to escort supplies or whatever the case may be. The downside being the more people on the contract, the smaller the cut each person gets from the quest reward. Good way to make it so you can't be attacked during enemy player Ronin during a mission, and only have to worry about mobs.. but much smaller reward.

As I said, HUB towns have locked combat areas, they are where you team up with other Ronin if you decide to. Out in the fields, which are large open plains (not unlike Feudal era Japan. Not a hallway), it's a PvP flagged zone. If you end up in an instance with 9 other Ronin that aren't on a contract together, it could potentially become a death match situation. If you're going to try and stop a supply, you better have back up if you think that supply is going to have player Ronin guards.