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Future of MMO (End of personnal advancement)
blackraist
Member UncommonPosts: 23
I though I should share a discussion I had on the future of MMO with a friend. We have both been playing MMOs for some years now and I think some interesting ideas could be developped here by the community.
First, let me tell you that I speak french so my english may sound weird sometimes and my punctuation will be based on what I know of the english language.
I think the future of MMOs will live through guild progression and not character progression. We all know that gaining levels to end up trying to get some gear has done it's part. We also know that high end gaming is not done solo.
Here is what I think could help with the famous grinding used everywhere and for everything repetitive :
1- Less levels. Most games are easy enough to be well understood after many less level than there are and levelling should only be used as introduction or tutorial. I would go with 30 of 40 warcraft levels, more or less. During these levels, you try the game, find a guild, do some instances/questing to get some hints on the lore and that's it.
2- Guild oriented development. I mean something like this :
Guys, let's get there (20-30 min instance). Our healers are a little behind the rest and they need the 0.5% spell power spell inscription found there. Bonus now available from guild scribe for a price set by the guild.
Guys, the dragon in (insert lair here) drops a tooth that may be studied to craft an icecrusher addon to piercing weapons and this would help our rogues, archers and pikemen for (ice instance run to get a talent point for frost mages.)
Get the point? You look at the guild you are in and improve it. Characters in it are in for the guild and improve themselves through the guild. It's like when you farm for badges in guild
3- Fun things are often meaningless or useless. Guys, a painting from old age is hidden in this abandonned mansion. Let's get it for our living room. You get there, in less than 45 minutes the painting is on the wall and the players are proud and talk about it on vent.
4- All around groups should be encouraged. Let's try with 6-man groups. There should have slots with bonus when all slots are filled up. This could help mass-support classes like buffers. I remember a troubadour in EQ2 having some problems finding groups. This should never be the case. Tanks, DPS and healers are nice, but grey zone classes may also be cool. And who said no one would like to bring a blacksmith on a raid?
5- Everything can be grinded if it is well presented. Let's say a zone need your guild to have 10 000 rep with a faction to put the guild mansion on it. You could grind the rep and get the reward so the 6 hardcore gamers grind the rep and the guild gets the reward. But let's say each players rep is maxed at 1000 for a guild of 20 players. At least 10 players will need renown with the factions for the guild to achieve the goal and not only the guild leaders. This will encourage cooperative play to achieve a common goal.
I'll stop it here as I fear the wall of text curse, but I think you should have gotten the idea by now.
Let me just say that I thought of some problems with this kind of gameplay (players changing guilds, massive amount of instances/quest to get each improvement, tech issues with land modification and building construction, etc.) but I want your ideas on all this.
Thanks for you being here so that this discussion may exist.
Blackraist
Comments
Co-ops are fun and have social elements but remember that people are generally selfish first, altruistic second. You still must have some individual advancement. The enlightment was discovered to be partial false, one will not always improve the community to improve the self.
Major or Current Characters
AC - The Brute lvl 85 macer -HG (retired)
SWG - Lihone Su'alkn Master Ranger/ MCH - Flurry (Retired)
EVE - Sulone - Cruiser Lover (Retired)
LOTRO - Sandric lvl 50 Burg (and others)- Brandywine (Retired)
GW2 - Sandric lvl 80 Thief - Dragonbrand (Retired)
NeverWinter - Sandric lvl 60 Rogue - Dragonshard (Retired)
Archage - Sandric lvl 50 everything - Naima (Active)
Others (Lots) (Retired)
your also assuming most of us like the idea of working with a guild and not solo, every game has to have a solo element or it will cut out a large number of players. Guilds are fun and all but their not worh all most peoples gaming time.
I disagree and would not play the game you propose. I like progression and I dont have a group of real life friends I can guild with. I pretty much oppose everything you said basically.
What happens if some people in a guild have a fight and the guild breaks up? Do you essentially have to start the game over? Guild drama happens, you know, and making guild leveling so important would probably lead to a lot more of it.
Reminds me a bit of the golden days of the Game that shall not be named (SWG) We'd get together and go after some of the harder to aquire things. I agree in part with some of the other posters in that It would not be something you would want to solely build a game around, but something to supplement a game with. I think thats where many games fall short. I didn't play it but the AA (Alternate Advancement) in Everquest was "i'm told" brought a little bit of that comraderie you speak of. I can think of a number of games your suggestions would enhance significantly.
This space reserved for pithy comment.
I suspect the culture of an MMO reflects the culture of it's creators.
This means that asian games tend to be more group based (FFXI) or guild based (Legacy), whilst american games tend to be more individualistic (WoW).
So does the OPs prediction reflect a yearning for an MMO more in tune with his own native culture?
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
OP, what you propose is still the RAID-or-Die mentally that's being found in most mmo today.
We need a much more sand-box type end-game that's without grind, without doing the same things over and over again, that can cater to both raiders, pvpers, soloist, that constantly improves your character but not base on grinding for gears, not spamming the same spell over and over again just so that it will be high level enough to use, etc etc etc etc.....
Hope you get the idea....
RIP Orc Choppa
I would support the addtion of Guild Based Advancement to a game that has a comprehensive Individual based Advancement system, thus allowing Players more options in gameplay. I like some of your Ideas, as those Players that would appreciate the new items you used for examples are also the Players most likely to work together to get them. Keeping both system in a game would provide advancements for all Players.
my Bottom Line...give the PLAYERS the choice of whether that want to do Individual, Guild, Both, or even Neither. Provide the Advancement Systems and let the Player him/herself decide.
Although I believe that guild advancement will be a significant part of MMOs in the future, I do not believe that any company will limit their playerbase by making guilds the be all end all of MMO gaming. TO do so would severly restrict their appeal.
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
While guild raiding and guild activities are indeed liked by many people, not everyone in a guild wants to spend every gaming second attatched to the guild. Afterall, a guild is a collection of individuals, not an individual collection.
But I do not see any harm in presenting more guild oriented activities rather than just kill X mob for Y loot. Rinse. Repeat.
A massively mutliplayer online game. That just means it's got a lot more players than standard multiplayer games. It doesn't state or imply that forced grouping is a necessary or required element.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I think that the idea has merit, but I've gone even farther and suggested that a game can be created where the 'achievements' are server-wide instead of being restricted to guilds. Personal achievements wouldn't be recognized by the game and would be something that individuals just choose to pursue, somewhat like EVE Online's sense of accomplishment that comes with helping to complete community goals.
That is a very real, and disturbing possiblity. I've noticed most mmo's are sliding down hill, by taking away some of the quests and goals needed to achieve something, making the game easier by request almost. Easy to the point of "I had to go through hell to do that back in the old days, Theese young whippersnappers are getting too lazy.".
(And yes, I feel the onset of crankiness the older i get)
This space reserved for pithy comment.
Pick a passtime. When it started out, only the hardcore enthusiasts would do it because it was difficult to do. Then it was made a little bit safer or more accessible for friends and family. Over time it was made so accessible that the masses started descending on it and enjoying it their way. The hardcore either hated the transition, citing the commercialization/exploitation of their passtime, or they embraced the transition, becoming rich and/or famous for popularizing the passtime.
It probably started out with hunters killing animals with their bare hands. Then some joker made it accessible to the masses when he sharpened a stick. That was the day REAL hunting died.
MMOs are no different from every other genre. If the game is too easy for everyone it becomes boring and no one will play. Single player games get blasted all the time for being a joke sometimes. They have difficulty levels. So do the better MMOs.
Look at WAR and AOC. PvE is a real joke for the most part. No real challenge most of the time and they're not doing all that well. MMOs that offer both a challenge and an easier path will be well received. Remember WOW has hardcore elements along with all the soloing easy parts and its not having any sort of problem retaining people. Those that want to tackle the hard parts can do so with heroics and achievements. Those that don't want to don't have to. ANyone who says everything in WOW is easy is simply ignorant
Newer MMOs that do VERY well will have varying options. The more the better.
Remember, older MMOs were hard due to time requirements, bugs and tedium or lack of a good UI, not any sort of amazing brain defying strategy, quick thinking or fast reflexes.
1: Hate it, and hate how few levels MMOs currently have and how easy it is to get through them, I like to advance and grow and the current main stream style of oh there's 40-50 levels and it takes a whole 2-3weeks to get through them is boring to me and always makes me quit.
2: Hate the focus being on the guilds. Guilds should be a social aspect, and possibly allow some control of areas or resources, but I want there to be plenty of ways to personally advance, not just help a group of random people I had to join to get to the content.
3: Rarely true for me, I like to improve every way I can, finding a completly meaningless object I can put on a wall to look at as a meaningless object does not interest me in the least.
4:The one I do agree with because always needing the one key class for x quest is irritating to no end.
5:I would like to remove grind from the games all together. WAR sucked for the fact that grind was how all achievements for a side were made, needless to say I didn't go past one month with that game for a variety of reasons. Make it constantly different tasks to do, not this is the grind for place x.
I think the OP and I have the same hopes for the progression of MMOs, but with a little difference in execution.
IMHO, a game is destined to fail if it puts the goals of the many above the goals of the few. This may seem backwards, and in reality, it is. But we are not talking about reality, we are talking about a game. People want to accomplish things that affect their character, that improve their gameplay experience.
If a game can find a way to combine the two different aspects of personal achievement with mass achievement, it will be successful. Most people I know don't go to the high level raids to challenge themselves; they go for the loot. I'll use WoW as an example because it is the game I am most familar with. I, and I know I wasn't alone in this practice, would check thottbot.com before going into a new and unfamilar instance to see if it had any drops for the class I was playing. If it didn't have anything of value to me, I wouldn't go. I was a warrior att, and because that instance lacked drops for warriors, the other classes that relied on the tank struggled to find an adequate group. I believe WoW has responded to that by melding and blurring the distinction between classes. (Which is the main reason why I no longer play that game)
Instead, what if a game had some kind of alternate currency that symbolized the feats you are accomplishing in game. The instance doesn't have any good drops? Well choose the option before entering to disable the ability for you to pick up any drops. In turn, every boss you kill will drop Fame points that you accrue and use to buy items/consumables/recipes that can only be bought with those points.
What if you use WoWs LFG system but make it useful? Go into an instance with players that you have never grouped with before and maybe a different part of the instance is available that has extra drops or different things.
These are just ideas of mine, raw at best, and I would love to hear thoughts/critiques.
Basically, if you make player progression synonymous with mass progression, you have a hell of a game (imo).
P.S. sorry for semi-wall of text, my first post here and I'm stoked to be talking about this kind of stuff. Thanks!
You are pretty much describing WoW's heroic badge system. Everytime you kill a boss in heroic mode, you get a badge that you can the turn in for items from a vendor. In WotLK a full clear of a basic 5man heroic instnace will get you about 1/10 of an epic trinket or 1/20 of an epic weapon.
I don't really agree with the OP either. While guilds are nice and welcome, they are a HUGE step backwards in MMOs. They used to be all about guilds, but most people don't have time for that.
I do think the future of MMOs will need to achieve a certain level of balance between ease and challenging content to be successful. However, I do not think WoW should be used as the basis for the future of the MMO industry. It is a separate entity. While it has done some good for the industry (arguably), I do believe that most people seem to discount that a large part of WoW's success comes from brand name recognition. It's a blizzard product. Blizzard games are always popular, and are usually good games (which helps perpetuation it's reputation). The success of WoW would probably not have been even half as much if it was made by a different company. Even if it looked and played almost identical.
The future of MMOs will only relate to WoW in terms of whether or not they will be able to compete on the same level as Blizzard, which is unlikely. The sad truth is while we continue to have diversity in the MMO genre, it only further dilutes the player base, as it is very difficult to take up multiple MMOs seriously, due to the time constraints. As long as the time constraints remain (and some may argue these define the MMO), there will always be a draught of players until the gaming industry, as a whole, is able to expand significantly.
It should be less based around the guild, and more around an unmutable entity. I.E. a faction or a "guild" that is comprised of all (or at least most) of the members of that class / skill set / objectives.
For a clue, check out the Iron Realms MUDs to see what I mean by that kind of entity.
Guilds fall apart far too quickly to involve any long term work. Maybe, after a long, long time, the guild could BECOME one of these entities, but that's about as much as I can imagine for it.
Guilds in fantasy MMOs fall apart right and left because there is nothing holding them together. They are bunches of players who have agreed to join the same chat channels. Put something on the line that they have to work together to attain and you'll see fewer guilds collapsing - or simply never forming.
Consider EVE Online's alliances. They are massive and last for years. What the original post is talking about is implemented by CCP fairly well; corporations and alliances build up control of space and develop relationships, members, assets, etc. It is a clear form of progression at the community level.
They do fall, of course. But note that the game then becomes one of player skill. There is no end-game when that's the case. There is only the task of building and keeping your group operating as well as possible as long as you can. If it bends or breaks, you patch it up and try again. Something that people never do seem to understand is that it's the gaining of achievements that is the entertainment, not the having of them.
Guilds in fantasy MMOs fall apart right and left because there is nothing holding them together. They are bunches of players who have agreed to join the same chat channels. Put something on the line that they have to work together to attain and you'll see fewer guilds collapsing - or simply never forming.
Consider EVE Online's alliances. They are massive and last for years. What the original post is talking about is implemented by CCP fairly well; corporations and alliances build up control of space and develop relationships, members, assets, etc. It is a clear form of progression at the community level.
They do fall, of course. But note that the game then becomes one of player skill. There is no end-game when that's the case. There is only the task of building and keeping your group operating as well as possible as long as you can. If it bends or breaks, you patch it up and try again. Something that people never do seem to understand is that it's the gaining of achievements that is the entertainment, not the having of them.
You are describing only one guild model that in the end is very goal focused rather than society focused. The downfall of this model is that if there is an unresolved dispute on how the goal should be achieved the guild will split and collapse. It happens all the time with raiding guilds in WoW. They build the 'soul' of the guild around raid progression and if there is disagreement on how the progression is to be achieved then the guild focus is diluted and people start leaving.
I used to be part of a guild that started in 2002 in Earth and Beyond. We moved around a few games until we ended up in WoW but we retained our core values and principle throughout that time. We did not have a central goal, nor did we 'put something on the line'. We simply enjoyed playing together and formed a society around respecting each other's playstyles. We usually had 100+ members.
The guild collapsed in 2007 after we switched to a more goal and guild-focused style when we started raiding. Different guild members wanted to progress the guil in different manners and paces and it put massive friction into what used to be a rather smooth interaction. It literary ripped us apart and destroyed a community and society that formed over 5+ years.
So putting more emphasis on guild-over-player progression can be extremely desturctive.
It's not much of a society when it cannot survive a group decision about how to play a game. If a group is predicated on social interaction, they can stick to games that don't require them to make any choices that might split their community.
In any case, the fragmented guild will reform with other groups around shared goals. Working towards those shared goals will produce a stronger sense of community for all involved.
Thanks guys for the discussion. I read many interesting things and I can't honor them all by citing them but I'd like to continue or clarify some points.
To those who think that personnel advancement should be possible soloing, rest assured, I agree.
I also agree that everyting should be possible without a guild. I ran a lot of quest/instances with characters from other guilds or without guilds at all.
I also think that what works in many games should keep on working. Loot is always nice and pleasant and I would not dismiss this idea. Who would play P&P RPG without any loot?
Just like PVP. Some like it and some don't, but give them the choice.
Those who said that guilds often become emotives are also absolutely right. But if you have many things to do in a game, single-minded guilds will be less frequent. I live in Montréal and people from everywhere with ideas from both end of the spectrum live there and we do it together. If you have a guild creating something big (land, farms, guildhall, tradeskills, personnal skills, trainers, etc.) you won't want to quit because the traders don't want to raid. (Opening for hits here!)
I'll give you an example of what we could do with the system I propose.
Let's say I joined a guild, but I know nobody in it and don't want to participate. I do quest, tradeskills, get better, richer. I try a run with another guild who is LFM and like it then log out. Routine for many MMO gamers (me included as I have 2 kids), but while I did all I did by myself, the guild grew bigger (a little, but that's not the point) and I participated in something by playing solo.
But let's say I want to participate in the guild more actively, I have many possibilities without grinding. Here I'll explain what I mean by grinding.
Doing 5 times a raid for badges is grinding, killing 100 bats for XP is grinding, running 3 times and instance for a drop is grinding.
Raiding for a recipe that I can share is not, questing to unlock an instance is not, running the instance to get the title which gives +5 Willpower is not.
That's what I want in new games. Things to do and a world to develop. I want to see a land owned by us with tradeskillers working the land. I want to see a castle/keep being repared after a storm. I want heroes going to was and explorer mapping lands. Why don't we see this in a game? We don't see this because nobody came with an idea on how to give something rewarding to these players.
I'll continue later as I need to eat but I'll be back to read how you can build on that.
Thanks again for you help in structuring something.
Blackraist
I disagree with many of the posters here and agree with the op.
More solo oriented experiences tend to fail terribly right now. Look at Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault. They were solid well budgeted game with big names, but it was really had to have a team dynamic in those games.
Are you a UO veteran, odds are you remeber ganking with a buddy or a group of buddies. WoW Id be willing to bed that over 90% of the people who play for an extended period of time (half a year or more) are in a guild and involved in it.
Darkfall is a terribly... terribly buggy, rough around the edges game, with HUGE launch issues and all sorts of problems, yet the game has people still playing it and looks like its going to stay around. Its got a HUGE emphasis on guild progression.
There is no way to make each individual player feel special, thats a limit MMORPGS have. Conversly there are things you could do to make a guild feel powerful and amazing. People are attracted to that feeling of being special and that feeling is much more acheivable in guild wide progression as opposed to solo.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...