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A Few Things You Should Know Before You Start TR: A Brief Review
Grenfell
Member Posts: 9
Since I used MMORPG.com extensively when trying to figure out what game I wanted to try after DDO, I thought I would share my $0.02 with the wider MMO community about Tabula Rasa. I've been playing since pre-release (didn't have time for beta) with my tightly knit guild. And I've been playing MMORPG's since Asheron's Call and think I have a reasonable level of experience and expectations from games in this genre. Of course, this is just one guy's opinion -- make of it what you will.
First, some caveats. I had enormous expectations for TR. This was the game I was really jazzed about since I heard about some of the features. It's almost never a good thing to start with such high expectations, as the games that have met or exceeded all my expectations can be counted on one hand. Having said that, TR is the Game That Could Have Been.
The Good
The concept behind TR is excellent.
Combat can be exciting, especially in the beginning, as you learn to love the shotgun.
The graphics are consistently good -- the enemy mobs are often extremely well done. The grotesque mobs are appropriate grotesque; the dangerous ones radiate danger from their sheer size alone. The first time you encounter a Stalker is... memorable.
The FPS approach is neither good nor bad -- it is simply what it is. Fans of FPS games will find it laughable, because it really isn't a twitch game in that sense. There's skill involved, but not that much at the end of the day, as you really can't miss as long as your reticle is somewhere in the vicinity of your target. There's no such thing as a headshot (except as a skill you train in one of the tech trees), or real circle strafing (though you can do it vs. some slow mobs), or any such thing. Cover is important, but you'll quickly realize that it is extremely limited.
At the same time, it is no worse and no better than most of the MMORPG combat systems I've experienced -- I personally think DDO has better implementation of melee combat, but... to each his own.
The Bad
In a sense, what is "bad" about TR is closely related to your expectations of the game. Because I expected certain things, these two really stood out for me as negatives. If you do not expect these things, then they won't matter to you.
The two things that I looked forward to most turned out to be mere dreams: Logos, and Control Points.
When I read the description of Logos, and how Garriott had invented a whole language, I honestly thought that NCSoft had made some sort of a technological breakthrough in dealing with "magic".
What I was hoping to see is 'customer-created magic'. That's one thing that no game has ever managed to do, at least to my knowledge. I thought/hoped that you would be able to combine various Logos to create spells. For example, maybe "Power" adds Strength, but if you combine "Power" with "Kill", you add +50% to your crit rate. Perhaps combining "Teleport" with "Summon" and "Friends" would create the ability to conjure up a wormhole for your party. Or some such thing.
Importantly, this would take experimentation to figure out what combination of Logos would do what. Failure could have been disastrous -- maybe "Power" and "Kill" doesn't add +50% to your crit rate; maybe it permanently drains your Power meter by 50% (!).
I wanted to see a "Logos creator" interface that would allow us to combine Logos in different ways to create custom powers/effects, with the chance of success/effect being tied somehow to your Mind/Spirit whatever. Eventually, the community might have figured out all of the various combinations -- but by leaving it open-ended, the developers could always introduce new combinations, or even combinations of combinations, allowing for an extremely rich environment for "magic" -- one that would actually reward diligent research and study.
Instead, Logos in TR is just a "pre-req" you have to collect in order to activate pre-set skills that can't be modified. The skills themselves tell you what Logos you need. So all you end up doing is running around and collecting Logos (but really, you only need the ones your skills are tied to) so you can activate the skill once you reach the appropriate level and have invested skill points into the skill. Talk about a disappointment.
For all of the hype surrounding Logos, that Garriott created a functioning language, with rules, grammar, etc. -- Logos is just a set of collection quests.
Control Points
This was the biggest disappointment. CP was the reason why I wanted to play TR in the first place.
The fundamental weakness of MMO's is that PvE becomes an endless grind, with no accomplishment, no goals. Your party goes to kill Dragon XYZ, and loot Sword of Whatever -- but next hour, the dungeon respawns, and the next group goes and does it. There is very little sense of "accomplishment" in the MMO world. I had thought that CP would be something grander, and more meaningful in gameplay terms, providing exactly that sense of accomplishment.
Basically, I thought CP's would establish the notion of "enemy lines". It makes natural sense.
If anyone's ever played StarCraft, you know about the Creep (for Zerg) and energy fields (Pylons). If CP's worked that way, and some changes were made, that would have been amazing.
For example, instead of CP just being a static base with portals, assault/defend missions, and a hospital, imagine how it would have been if players/clans were allowed to build portals, build bunkers, build factories/mines/etc. but ONLY IN CONQUERED TERRITORY. Imagine how it would have been if within CONQUERED TERRITORY, you don't run into random pods of Bane -- only natural beasts. Imagine how cool it would have been if you can't run certain quests/missions until you pushed the enemy line far enough to have access to the quests/missions.
With the idea of battle lines, you create a natural "no man's land" area where the enemy would be thick and numerous. Behind enemy lines, you have your own problems, but that would have allowed for things like missions to do surprise drops behind enemy lines to take over a CP and establish a firebase behind enemy lines. Or to go cut enemy supplies behind enemy lines. Some missions could be server-wide (via radio) to go extend the lines by conquering CP's Alpha through Delta.
The CP concept would have imbued all the PvE with meaning, and created the idea of a battlefront with all the chaos. Plus, the enemy can push back -- meaning that all of your gains (your clan's fortress, your guildhall, your personal Tower, whatever) could be wiped out unless the CP's are defended. That would require cooperation, a large organized clan, or alliances between smaller clans, and a fluid situation where if you've got nothing else planned, you can just go help push a battle line forward, or push back on defense.
Instead... CP's are just static places in the map. There is no real reward for clearing a CP -- you get access to a portal, to a hospital, and some Assault/Defend missions that involved killing mobs and collecting tokens (which you turn in for a small reward). Since you can't build anything anywhere, there is no notion of "controlled space" and "uncontrolled space".
Furthermore, the CP's get attacked randomly -- bunch of dropships materialize and drop waves of mobs off. This means, of course, that you and your five friends CAN'T plan for it. It isn't as if you can say, "Hey guys -- this Friday night, let's get together and try to clear CP Beta". It's all random.
CP battles are too easy to boot. Some of the fights, granted, can be entertaining and hectic and chaotic -- but there really is no sense of accomplishment from clearing a CP or defending one. Three reasonably-well equipped people can clear most of the CP's of their level (or lower) or defend one from dozens upon dozens of mobs. There is very little strategy, very little tactics -- just a "run out there and shoot". There aren't any "officers" to take out (if you're, say, a Sniper or a Spy) that make a difference; no flanking fire, no real artillery support, no air battles -- just a swarm of ground troops going against some PC ground troops. Mass damage rules all, and healers might as well not bother.
But worst of all, whether you take a CP or not, the game itself is just not affected that much. Eventually, you get tired of the meaninglessness of all the fighting, and stop bothering with CP defense or assault completely.
The Ugly:
But to be fair, both of the "Bad" are directly related to my personal expectations of what I had hoped TR would be. If you didn't have such expectations, then neither of them are bad. They are just what they are.
The things I note in The Ugly, however, are problems without justification. These are basic things that any MMORPG released in 2007 should have. These are things that TR does so badly that I just can't comprehend how the game got released at all. It's as if NCSoft and Garriot and the whole team has never played an MMO. This is a FIFTH GENERATION MMO. The mistakes they're making are things that the first four generations (Gen1: UO, Gen2: EQ/AC, Gen3: AO/COH/DAOC, Gen4: DDO/LOTRO, Gen5: TR/AOC/etc.) got right. To blow these things is to completely miss the mark for any MMORPG.
Let me give some examples.
1. No Loot.
How is this even possible? Loot is one of TWO primary motivating forces in any RPG, nevermind an MMO. We're talking Diablo days here. For TR to have no real loot is just mindboggling. It isn't as if they replaced loot with some other motivating force (rank in the army? regular salaries?). They just plain ole eliminated one of the two most important motivating forces in a MMO.
There is ONE unique weapon (at least that I've found/know of) which is a machinegun -- and therefore, not usable by 50% of the character classes. It gets so quickly outgrown that the uniqueness is hardly worth the effort.
You are inundated with items (grey/green/blue/purple) but the difference between them is negligible. Even with the recent patch that made rarer weapons do more damage, I never really felt like they made much of a difference. Case in point: when you clone, you end up with a character that has no gear at all. I take credits, go to the merchant, and buy all grey-level items. Go out and perform exactly as well as I did with purples and blues. The purple items do not let me take on mobs that I could not with greys; nor do the greys make it extremely difficult to do quests.
After a while, you realize that you can just simply sell everything you loot and do fine. And since credits are not hard to come by, it ends up removing one of the key motivators of playing a MMO -- improving your equipment. Some might LIKE this; I do not, for the simple reason that it removes yet another reason to play.
2. Impossible to Team With Friends
How is this even possible? By now, every single game company in this space should know that clans are a major part of any online game. So given that... how does TR decide to make it so very hard for a clan to team up and do quests together?
What is the deal with all of the pre-reqs for major quests? It isn't even as if you can repeat quests. There is no incentive whatsoever to repeat a quest, which means that people have to sacrifice to help others, and the others knowing that don't want to be a burden.
This game encourages random teaming, because that's all you'll get given the structure of quests. And with XP so heavily weighted in favor of doing quests, doing quests continually is the most effective way to gain XP. Result: clans become more or less meaningless.
I entered this game with eight people from DDO -- we're all close friends, good gamers, who know how to work with each other, etc. But we have differing schedules, differing commitments, etc. Like any clan (except perhaps the hardest of the hardcore). We simply could NOT get on the same page for major quests. We had people coming back to help others get through a quest, getting next to nothing out of the time spent (no xp, no loot, nothing).
A typical conversation went like this:
- Hey, you guys want to do XYZ?
- Oh, can you share it?
- Says you're not eliible.
- Damn. What's the pre-req?
- I don't know. Doesn't say. I think I got the pre-req from Base ABC, but can't remember from whom.
- Well, guess I can't do that one.
This lack of attention is simply unforgivable. Plus, any quest worth doing with friends has so many pre-reqs (for those who played TR, think Temple of Raging Patriarch) that it is nearly impossible to get your clan together on the same page -- unless people hold off at one stage and wait for others to get caught up in the quest chain.
Even in instances, some people would have a quest that others did not -- and couldn't share the objectives because of pre-reqs. Insane, really.
3. Travel
After four generations of MMO's have proven that people love the ability to get around quickly, all that TR gives us is a set of waypoints.
Anarchy Online had flying vehicles six years ago. WOW -- the world's most popular game -- has mounts.
How does this game not have any travel beyond waypoints?
The Bane has dropships coming out of the wazoo -- and your side also has dropships that will drop off NPC's in the middle of combat zones. But you, the PC, must leg it out everywhere? (And believe me when I say that running is not all that fast, even with full ranks in Motor Assist armor).
A sci-fi game that has NO air travel, resulting in frustrating attempts to get around a box canyon, is really an asinine attempt to hide the fact that each zone is tiny. I could have accepted air defense as a way to curb people flying all over the place -- fly over that, and you'll get shot down, losing your 5 million credit personal airship -- but the way that TR implemented its zones and travel is positively backwards.
Summary
TR could have been a great game. It could have changed the whole paradigm of what makes an MMORPG fun by implementing CP's the right way. It could have revolutionized the way that MMORPG's go about handling "magic". Instead, it is a deeply flawed game lacking in some of the most basic elements of satisfying gameplay for a multiplayer game.
If you enjoy mostly solo play with the opportunity to group with random groups of people on occasion, then TR may not prove as frustrating for you as it did for me. If you have a clan, or a regular gaming group, or friends you like to run with... then you will quickly understand all of the enormous flaws in this game.
/gren
Comments
A very extensive .02 cents. Your constructive outlook is most informative which is so much better to see than a bunch of game bashing. I went into the game with no expectations except for a fun time and thats what I got. They say in the future they will be implementing some kind of travel other than the teleporter. I find traveling in game isn't a problem for me, but thats just MHO. I personally have had a blast with the game. I was hoping for a little different pvp but I am still really enjoying the control point aspect. The end game will be the clenching factor for me. I am taking my time and at least getting my money's worth out of it and having a great time but the end game is what gives mmo's staying power because I'm not one to just reroll a chir to re accomplish everything again for the sake of continued game play.
I really liked your review of TR Grenfell. I do have to admit that I only played the beta and had enjoyed it however there was something shallow about TR that I could not put my finger on exactly what and I believe you covered most of it well.
I had no problem with the logo system because honestly I did not pre-read into the game very deep before play, so I had found it as just a simple fresh idea.
Building bases like in Starcraft would be wonderful and new to MMO's but adding stuff like that would keep this game on the table for much longer and I'm sure MMO's will someday implement that, and to expect that would just be wishful thinking at this time.
I can't stand quest with pre-reqs. and most all games have them, I'm back to WoW for now because of friends learning MMO's and I find it hard to just quest with them, If we don't see each other on in a few days were all over the place with getting on the same page. Pre-quest is why I droped LOTRO it was all about pre-quest and I could not make a single friend because of it. Most quest had 5 to 10 parts to it !
One thing I would like to add to your review is about cloning. I really believe this will have a long term impact on keeping players because you don't have to re-roll your character from the beginning. There is just no reason to play after you hit max level and TR will loose most of its community.
Anyway thanks for your review Grenfell and I agree with most everything, and I also liked D&D Online it's a good game that got a bad rap at release.
Spot on.. very nice review.
Waiting for Fallen Earth, World of Darkness, Old Republic, FFXIV
Exactly the same problems I've found with the game, as well as the same things I like about it. I'd add to your review that in Sci Fi game I want more Sci Fi elements - interstellar travel (beyond just 2 planets), spaceship battles, or at the very least the chance to run around in cool futuristic vehicles. If freaking Quake Wars and Halo 3 have cool vehicles, why can't Tabula Rasa have skimmers or mechs or futuristic tanks?
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Remember it's a new game and one of the articles they have out says there planning on implementing more in game once the percentage of end game players rises.
LOL, that's just crazy...
You cannot expect people to buy into a game based on future promises that may not ever happen.
If I find a piece of crap on my floor I'm going to get rid of it instead of hoping it starts to smell better...
Very good points and mostly agreed here;
I too wish Logos were more 'meaningful', there are a handful of quests where you have to use your tabula to 'translate' Eloh structures, and a lot of the interesting lore involves the Logos, but it does seem to me like it could have been so very much more.
The "Mission Pre-reqs" is a particular bone of contention with me, I understand that for storyline purposes one thing follows another and turning in one quest offers up another; I'm just not sure how they could change this without messing up the lore. The biggest problem with this however is when you combine it with the 'cloning' system, its a nightmare.
Get a quest, complete it, and you are sent to this building. Enter building, get a quest, complete it. Clone character. Now you can't repeat the original quest that sent you into the building, and you can't enter the building because you don't have the quest. (This as early as Divide). And I wont even get started with the havoc that Cloning does to your Targets of Opportunity series. There are a large number of missions that are simply broken, I think I've had to have a GM fix at least 20 quests for me (I'm lvl 41 with 5 or so broken things in my quest log and the last 4 instances I've tried to do were broken/incompletable (crucible)). So it needs some work here as well.
I disagree about equipment; especially after the recent tweaks, I notice a SIGNIFICANT (very, very significant) difference between wearing shop gear and custom-picked prototype (purples). Not only in the fact that nicer gear adds more AC, but careful selection of what stats you want can double your health, power pool, regen rate, etc. Weapons that add vulnerability of their damage type, drain health, drain armor, drain adrenaline...I have to wonder if you're just wearing the first stuff you find..I don't mean this as an insult, but with the addition of an auction house its very easy to create a set of gear that can help considerably, especially when looking at weaponry choices.
However, I'd say 95% of gear is the same old quest rewards thrown up on the AH, and 5% being generated drops, and I agree that there is no real "uber" loot. But I've definitely found some really nice pieces.
Gaming? That's not gaming!
That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
No doubt, and I'm sure they'll continue to improve it.
However, I am seriously skeptical on how they go about improving the deep flaws in grouping. The chain-mission mechanic is really, really bad for a multiplayer game. I didn't realize just how damaging it is to group play until the third week or so into the game.
Of the eight of us who started this game, and all of us were pretty hardcore (for people with jobs, families, and such -- enough to max out multiple characters in DDO and run raids every three days), four have quit outright before even the first month was up. I'm now down to logging in maybe once a week, and the remaining three are reporting via forums that this just ain't happening for our little guild.
These problems are not end-game problems. These are problems that are with you from level 1, and make getting to the endgame rather... difficult. Or at least not too much fun, if you get your enjoyment from grouping with people you know and trust and get along with.
I do hope NCSoft ends up fixing this. Like I said, I had great hopes for TR, and I still think it's a decent game, with potential. But they'd better move fast.
I strongly suggest they start by taking a very long hard look at what it's like to be a clan in TR right now.
/gren
I honestly don't see the point of mounts in this game. The maps are TINY. And when you get a quest, it's usually really close to a waypoint. You go to a waypoint to go a few meters to the quest then port waypoint your way back. The scenery is absolutely dull and forgettable so why would you want to run around in it for extended periods of time?
Could you exaggerate anymore? As a level 46 grenadier I've run into four broken or bugged quests. Two were in Mires (Flight Salvage and Little Bit Crazy), one in Plains (Terminate Lt. Phelps) and one was in an instance in Thunderhead (Ruins of Tampei - Flaregasher Genocide). I know for a fact that the Phelps mission was fixed recently because I completed it the day after the patch went through.
I'm sorry but if you've had a GM fix twenty quests you may possibly be the worst TR player in existence. And the last four instances were incompleteable? Again, bullshit. I did every single instance in Crucible literally a week ago and not a single anything was bugged. In fact, I've done every instance up to Descent and I've just had the one bugged mission in the Ruins of Tampei (Thunderhead).
I might be crazy, and if so, do call me crazy, but. Once there was this idea to release "complete" games you know. I know no MMO is ever, or should ever, be complete, as the beauty with monthly fee is to allow the game to keep getting better. However, letting unfinished games, with "nothing to do for those powergamers who fast level", or "planning to implementing" is a terrible concept. A game should not try to make money out of their costumers with "articles" of what will come.
For an example I'll use WoW, just 'cause that always makes for funny comments
. When WoW was released, and people where running around in Barrens, screaming for their life for the location of MANKIRKS wife, Molten Core was in game. The game had a define idea of endgame, you might not like it at all though, however, it was there.
I wholeheartidly agree with the OP. TR had such a potential but what it turned out to be was instead such a dissapointment.
Ah well... whats next? AoC surely can dissapoint as much.. or can it? Starting to believe that the whole MMORPG genre has gone down the drains since it was such a long time ago that I played a good one.
My gaming blog
I might be crazy, and if so, do call me crazy, but. Once there was this idea to release "complete" games you know. I know no MMO is ever, or should ever, be complete, as the beauty with monthly fee is to allow the game to keep getting better. However, letting unfinished games, with "nothing to do for those powergamers who fast level", or "planning to implementing" is a terrible concept. A game should not try to make money out of their costumers with "articles" of what will come.
For an example I'll use WoW, just 'cause that always makes for funny comments
. When WoW was released, and people where running around in Barrens, screaming for their life for the location of MANKIRKS wife, Molten Core was in game. The game had a define idea of endgame, you might not like it at all though, however, it was there.
Having an incomplete/flawed game which may or may not get fixed and having a complete game that evolves is not the same thing.
TR is flawed in so many areas that imo there is no fixing. The OP brings up most of the points but there are others as well. Like the meaningless of PvP, the tiny maps, no point in playing past level 30, repeteable missions and same looking mobs from level 1 to 50 and crafting and so on.
It's simply a flawed, incomplete MMORPG and I doubt they will do much to change many of these flaws because it would require to much developer work and as such, money.
My gaming blog
I think this is the first negative post I've seen on these forums that isn't a flat out troll. I pretty much agree with everything you said. You ideas about logos and CPs are great. The game would definitely be on another level if they had implemented any of that. These are the real reasons not to like TR, as opposed to "the intro sux", "I can't open my inventory with i", "TR is a WoW clone", etc.
Well, the tiny maps are also a problem.... Just for reference, compare the size of TR zones to the size of Anarchy Online's zones. And how old is AO now?
But what pissed me off even more was the inability to fly. I can get with not flying in a fantasy game; it would be a supernatural ability after all. But in a sci-fi game? Where every 3 minutes you see dropships incoming? Sorry, that one annoyed me to no end.
The only reason was so the devs could make the tiny maps appear to be larger by creating dead ends, impassable mountain ranges, box canyons and the like.
What I just don't understand is how DG and NCSoft did not see these things early, early on. How it is that Beta testing failed to warn them that the game had these incredibly deep flaws.
One lesson for all developers that I think can be drawn from TR -- when doing QA, make sure you invite AN ENTIRE CLAN, not just individuals. Every successful MMORPG I know of had very strong clans/guilds/orgs because people eventually tire of wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am relationships, even online, even in a game. People want to form long-term friendships, even if 'virtual' and based on slaying dragons or whatever. That is what every MMORPG developer should be focusing on: how to make the clan the central unit in gameplay, while letting individual players be able to function without one.
/gren
Gren,
Just a note, Saga of Ryzom (now bankrupt) had the custom spell creation system you mentioned. And Planetside (SOE) has a version of the Base Capture system you outlined.
Both games were, I believe, slightly ahead of the times. They really needed to be released about now, I think, and might have captured some of the WoW players that are looking for something a bit more expanded.
Nice look at TR from your needs; I agree with all your findings. And for my part, wish (once again) that they had implemented a 1st person view.
Good Hunting
I kind of fit your profile of the "solo gamer who groups on occasion," so maybe that's one of the reasons TR works so well for me, but a couple contrary observations:
1. Grouping and Quest Sharing
The problem with their model is the same as WoW's problems....once one play is on a track with a chain quest, you can't share if the others aren't. That's a typical goof in MMOs, I suppose, although it make "story sense." But that said, I've had no problem grouping with my friend in TR and completing mutual quests, at least no more so than other MMOs. I guess my experience here has varied from yours.
2. Loot
I seriously fail to understand your point. If the point is that there are few or no overly powerful loot items like WoW to drive players towards the acquisition of such good, well then good riddance. I cite the "loot problem" in WoW as one of my top three reasons I grew tired of that game. If TR ever reaches the point where I can not compete or am not considered good for grouping because I lack all purples due to my lack of time and interest beyond playing casually (i.e. less than 30 hours a week, which my former WoW buddies said was casual, and that to be serious I needed 30+ hours a week playing), then my TR days will be over.
As for the chainguns...well, I haven't played past level 25 yet, but that's still one of the best weapons in my arsenal. If by level 50 my favorite gun is much more impressive, well, goody!
On unique/limited access weapons: I believe the chaingun is not alone. Leech guns, net guns and possibly others are also class-specific.
Anyway, I like this game because loot is auto-divided in group, the loot is cool but not necessarily made uber-powerful with a single drop special item, and that lets you enjoy all the weird drops you get a lot more than treating it all like vendor trash. In short, I do not like "uber-loot centric" games one bit. Too many bad experiences with them.
3. Travel
Well, I agree here. But I think the regions are pretty large myself, so what do I know? They say there will be vehicles in the future, so we'll see.
4. Logos
I had no idea or notion of what this was about going in, so I wasn't disappointed, and have enjoyed racking up xp and unlocking logos skills as I find the little glowies.
5. CP Points
Your ideas are pretty cool. I have had fun with the CP Points so far, but agree that after a while they just become background flavor, and lack and real impact on the game. Still, I came to TR without even knowing about them, so what is here is a lot of fun so far.
Anyway, just my mileage variance within the game.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
I'll limit my response to clarify the Loot issue, as many other points are things where reasonable people can disagree reasonably.
First, the easy one: only unique item is a chaingun. I love chainguns as well... on my soldiers. But my support-class characters can't use the darn thing, and don't get anything even close. I was simply pointing out how little attention was paid to loot by TR devs that they ignored (essentially) half of the audience in putting the one and only unique named loot in the game.
Second, with respect to loot... my point is that MMORPG's generally have to provide a reason to login. The games do not 'end'; you don't finish the story; you don't "beat the game". What most have done in the past (and still do) is provide two main motivations to keep playing: XP and Loot. There's something to the notion that all MMO's are basically giant hamster wheels where you grind xp/loot in order to grind more xp/loot. That's true. But let me suggest that it is better to have TWO reasons to grind instead of just one, as it would be better to have three, four, five reasons to grind than two.
If TR was going to minimize the importance of loot, which is fine, then it needed to provide something else as a reason to keep logging in. Maybe military ranks that are associated with how many base defenses/assaults you've done that unlocks "special forces gear" or some such thing. DDO has this in its Favor system (which I'm not especially fond of, but recognize it for what it is).
In most MMORPG's, the lure of XP is on a steep curve because of its exponential nature. I believe that going from lvl 125 to lvl 126 in Asheron's Call took more xp than it took to get from 1-125. As a result, most games offer up rare loot as the reason to keep on hunting, keep on playing, etc. And grouping becomes a way to help the boredom along, punctuated by excitement as you finally pull that Awesome Sword of Awesomeness or whatever. And friendships are made, clans form, and communities arise.
Now look at TR.
What will keep you playing once you hit Tier 4? To see the new zones? To run the quests in the new zones? Let me guess -- you'll be running some sort of a Collection quest, and then some sort of an Escort quest, then some sort of a Delivery quest, then some sort of a Destroy XYZ quest... in short, the same quest mechanic you've been running since level 1. Not one of which changes the game world in any way, and since quest rewards are quite lame in any case, all you'd be getting from it is XP -- which is nice, but... you only get that once.
Look, I know over-focus on loot causes its own set of problems. But the real issue isn't loot per se; it's motivation to keep playing. The #1 challenge for any MMORPG developer is figuring that out: how do you keep your players playing and paying the $15 a month?
/gren
Grenfell, thank you for your insightful contributions to these forums. I've been waiting for the usual fanbois to show up and start posting personal attacks on you (which is their MO for most the other critical posts here).
I wish you had been in the TR beta. I do recall some posters on the beta forums with proposals similar to what you've come up with for Logos and Control Points (Unforunately CP's are one of the things that were never working in beta, even at the very end of beta). About 2.5 months prior to release it appeared to me that the DG developers simply stopped taking any input at all from the beta testers, and despite a universal outcry to delay releasing the game for at least a few more months we have TR in the state it is now.
First, the easy one: only unique item is a chaingun. I love chainguns as well... on my soldiers. But my support-class characters can't use the darn thing, and don't get anything even close. I was simply pointing out how little attention was paid to loot by TR devs that they ignored (essentially) half of the audience in putting the one and only unique named loot in the game.
Second, with respect to loot... my point is that MMORPG's generally have to provide a reason to login. The games do not 'end'; you don't finish the story; you don't "beat the game". What most have done in the past (and still do) is provide two main motivations to keep playing: XP and Loot. There's something to the notion that all MMO's are basically giant hamster wheels where you grind xp/loot in order to grind more xp/loot. That's true. But let me suggest that it is better to have TWO reasons to grind instead of just one, as it would be better to have three, four, five reasons to grind than two.
If TR was going to minimize the importance of loot, which is fine, then it needed to provide something else as a reason to keep logging in. Maybe military ranks that are associated with how many base defenses/assaults you've done that unlocks "special forces gear" or some such thing. DDO has this in its Favor system (which I'm not especially fond of, but recognize it for what it is).
In most MMORPG's, the lure of XP is on a steep curve because of its exponential nature. I believe that going from lvl 125 to lvl 126 in Asheron's Call took more xp than it took to get from 1-125. As a result, most games offer up rare loot as the reason to keep on hunting, keep on playing, etc. And grouping becomes a way to help the boredom along, punctuated by excitement as you finally pull that Awesome Sword of Awesomeness or whatever. And friendships are made, clans form, and communities arise.
Now look at TR.
What will keep you playing once you hit Tier 4? To see the new zones? To run the quests in the new zones? Let me guess -- you'll be running some sort of a Collection quest, and then some sort of an Escort quest, then some sort of a Delivery quest, then some sort of a Destroy XYZ quest... in short, the same quest mechanic you've been running since level 1. Not one of which changes the game world in any way, and since quest rewards are quite lame in any case, all you'd be getting from it is XP -- which is nice, but... you only get that once.
Look, I know over-focus on loot causes its own set of problems. But the real issue isn't loot per se; it's motivation to keep playing. The #1 challenge for any MMORPG developer is figuring that out: how do you keep your players playing and paying the $15 a month?
/gren
Valid points, although I think I'm not the right demographic for end-game content, anyway. When I max out my character advancement, and I've done all the quests, then I am either starting a new character or moving on. I've done this with numerous other RPGs, although the only one to satisfy my interest in storyline-based content so far has been Guild Wars, since each GW campaign actually involves your character in a meaningful way and provides a conclusive ending. TR doesn't look like it's going that direction to me, but at the same time, if they add a bunch of unique items, difficult endgame instances, and content that requires constant replay to try and achieve, then they still won't keep me. But the important thing here to understand is that I don't really believe a game needs all that to be of entertainment value to me. If I play TR for the next five to six months getting all my clones up to level 50 in each tier, then as I see it I've achieved what the game offered me. If the game has some endgame quests sitting around that require 30+ hours a week to grind through to get the named gear piece that will make me better at pvp....well, I'm just not that sort of player, and frankly I dislike games that cater to that sort of player. But unfortunately, it's a necessary component of MMOs (or seems to be) that they must spend as much time offering content to the guy who's got nothing but time and energy on his hands to grind away as to the casual player like myself who would prefer in 6 months a new expansion with new lower level content to enjoy and a storyline to follow.
I don't know what direction TR will ultimately take, but I can say right now it's a great game for the casual MMO fan with limited time. I doubt I'll even see my first level 50 character in the game for another couple of months, at least, so please bear that in mind. I've already met several players in the game with multiple 50 level characters....I am neither capable of playing with such intensity nor am I interested in a game that requires such intensity to play. If the game only ends up rewarding those players, it will eventually lose the casual players, and I am still of the conviction that we make up a greater percentage of MMO players.
Now, if they could come up with a way to cater to both hardcore and casual, without one being shafted over the other, I would certainly approve. No suggestions at the moment on how to do that, but maybe over time TR will morph in to something that can handle both.
Also, thanks for clarification on the idea of named/unique items. I didn't even know the game had one, let alone think of the concept. I really haven't had a problem with the gear system so far, but rather imagine a smattering of such unique items, properly balanced for play, would be fun merit rewards for some players. But like with Guild Wars I mentioned earlier, such rewards would only become troublesome if their traits were noticeably better than the usual good gear, making their acquisition all-important to endgame success. That I would be opposed to, on a simple game-balance basis.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
See, that was what had me so excited about the possibility of TR. The hardest thing to do in a MMO is keeping both the hardcore and the casual interested, and if TR had done CP's correctly, it would have accomplished exactly that.
What the TR devs did not realize, IMHO, was that what makes MMO's fun -- at the end of the day -- is social interaction. That doesn't mean necessarily being forced to interact with the whole wide world (griefers, anyone?) but it does mean that the only thing that sets persistent-world MMO's apart from every other genre is social interaction of some kind.
IMHO, too many games try to box you in, lay out what it is you're supposed to interact over, and so forth. Why not let the players themselves figure that out -- just provide the scenery and stand back.
In a "battle-lines" type of approach to CP's, for example, different people would have had different things they could do to contribute. The lower level, more casual player, can still participate by being the "ground troops" if you will. That would be very little different from what happens now -- you fight off waves of Bane, or attack through multi-layered defense. Meanwhile, the hardcore players have to accomplish certain objectives "behind enemy lines" if you will, in order to make an assault successful. Just to use one example, suppose you have to disable a forcefield before the assault can get past a certain point -- and the forcefield generator is deep in hostile territory, extremely dangerous, and requires a group of high-level characters equipped with the best gear working closely together. Meanwhile, until that is completed, the lower-level, more casual players, have to keep up the pressure on the battlefront to give the "special forces" the time to accomplish their task.
Couldn't you see a well-organized clan taking something like this on as a weekend night "raid"? And not split into "hardcore only" type of operations, because you will simply need large numbers to be successful. You will have leaders emerge, and those players will play harder, play more to maintain their leadership -- and even the most casual player will benefit. Even the smaller clans would form relationships with other clans to attempt one of these CP Raids.
Imagine if an entire sector's fate -- whether it becomes Hostile Territory, therefore subject to Bane spawns, or stays Friendly Territory, therefore capable of being built upon -- depends upon the CP being held. Multiple clans might have their HQ in that territory. If the CP Defense is difficult enough -- and requires that the Bane Commander (again, deep behind enemy lines) be taken out before the Bane assault stops -- then those clans would band together, call upon volunteers, offer rewards for those who join in defense, etc. Even the most casual player should be able to find a CP Defense going on somewhere on the server and jump in and help for an hour or so.
During one of the greatest events in MMO history -- the Shadow Wars of Asheron's Call -- you had the entire server galvanized from the lowbies to the hardcore 24/7 players. Even the lowest level toon could play scout and report up through their clan if they saw a Shadow spawn, and the high-levels would descend upon the area to fight it out. Multiple clans would form communication networks to keep each other informed. All that the Devs needed to do was to send in the shadows and let the players figure out how they were going to respond.
These are the kinds of things that create and strengthen bonds, and eventually create server-wide community. Ask veterans of Anarchy Online about the massive tower wars that would happen from time to time -- TR could have implemented something similar, but with PvE instead of PvP.
TR could have been an amazing game. It may become a solid game, with some of the changes that the Devs are planning on. Hopefully they read forums like this one and realize what they need to address. But with how the game is setup today, with the maps how they are, with the powers/skills the way they are... I seriously doubt it could be a GREAT game, something that changes the whole paradigm of MMORPG's as a genre.
/gren
You're exceptionally lucky. I've run into about a dozen broken quests, and another dozen that were bugged but could be eventually worked around.
Disagree about CP I think they are great. And I am no fanboi. I did not buy this game when Beta ended because I think it needs a lot of maturing of the class abilities.
There was a game that had almost all sandbox things OP is talking about -Shadowbane. Its outdated now tho...
Im also loosing my fate in today MMO-s. So many games i tried AC, AC2, AO, EvE, PS, SB, EQ, EQ2, WoW one would expect that TR released at the end of 2007 would be something fresh and new but miserably fails in almost every aspect. What hurts even more is ppl on this forums was talking about some major concept flows a year before game release...
One thing is sure i want be the one who will continue to pay monthly fee for things to be fixed or things to come. Once they implement everything they promised maybe i renew my subscription.
Ok, so whats next guys? What will be other MMO we gonna try hehehe
Having an incomplete/flawed game which may or may not get fixed and having a complete game that evolves is not the same thing.
TR is flawed in so many areas that imo there is no fixing. The OP brings up most of the points but there are others as well. Like the meaningless of PvP, the tiny maps, no point in playing past level 30, repeteable missions and same looking mobs from level 1 to 50 and crafting and so on.
It's simply a flawed, incomplete MMORPG and I doubt they will do much to change many of these flaws because it would require to much developer work and as such, money.
By your complaints then, every mmorpg is flawed.
First, when is PvP truly meaningful? PvP typically is usually 1 vs 1 or group vs group combat that has no real significance to the storyline of the game. Many people who PvP couldn't care less if its meaningful or not. They usually just want to either just fight against other things than AI, or roll over people so they can flex their epeens. It's prevalent in every FFA PvP game, which is usually why a lot of them fail (shadowbane), altered (UO), or have non FFA areas (EvE). I would say that the closest to where PvP really matters is EvE, however any game truly doesn't matter as it's technically a time waster.
Second, when is there a point to go past lvl 30, or for that matter any level, in any mmorpg? For fun? Well, I'd classify gaining a new class and testing new abilities as fun. If your complaint is lack of content, well that will be fixed. Remember, this is a new game, and all new games have room for improvement. Of course, you are probably spoiled on WoW's "massive" content (coughs in between laughter)... so impatience will get the better of you.
Third, repeatable missions. I don't think I've actually encountered a repeatable mission in TR yet. Of course, if you are referring to similar missions, then let me list games that have those.
That's just a handful that I could think up off the top of my head that I've played. So, by your definition, those failed as well due to similar quests/missions.
Fourth, what mmorpg hasn't used the same models, with minor tweaks, for mobs throughout the whole game? Should I list those as well? Seriously, this game is not even 3 months old. There's room for improvement, which means more mobs with different skins will appear.
About the only point I agree with you on is that crafting does suck in this game. But, as I said, there is still room for improvement. Yet, you don't care about that, as you just want to continue to bash the game without actually using logic or reason.