In theory, that's a great idea, it has worked for decades in the text-based MU* world. People make their own fun, they run their own games, they set up their own roleplaying and people stick around these games for decades. Unfortunately, I don't think most people who play MMOs are all that creative, they want things handed to them on a silver platter, they want predefined rules and predefined scenarios and predefined goals so they can gauge their performance against other people.
Take all that away and you have a true sandbox game where the sky is the limit because you can literally do anything.
Given that, it would fail immediately. Most MMO players simply couldn't handle it.
Originally posted by alecbr People conquered Mount Everest or North Pole and if I remember right they didn't get any XP or gear for it. I think a lot of players would like to play a MMORPG where the only aim would be exploring the world.
So what's your expected budget to develop this game.
All of you are saying that people don't like to explore things. That the only way that people would explore things is that you give them some reward (levels, XP, achievements, gear). I don't agree with you. I think exploring is an important part of human nature. I think a lot of people would explore things just for the sake of exploring - what's behind that mountain? what's in this valley? People conquered Mount Everest or North Pole and if I remember right they didn't get any XP or gear for it. I think a lot of players would like to play a MMORPG where the only aim would be exploring the world.
You want to bet millions dollars on it? I won't.
I agree with previous posters. There is no game here. If you say the gameplay consist of nothing but walking around and looking at pretty scenary .. i will pass. That is BORING.
And I think 99% of the players will agree with me.
The Mount Everest/North Pole analogy is silly. There are may be one in a million people who would like to do that. I am sure the all 300 people who would like your game in the US will subscribe. I hope they are willing to pay you a $100k fee or else I doubt you can afford to make your "game".
You know, a game like that would need some very talented content developers who are not only very well-versed in everything about life, but also very fast at designing and building it all in a digital world. Such developers do not exist and are not humanly possible.
All the design, construction, testing / QC, etc. of such a massive game wouldn't be possible within a lifetime. Or multiple lifetimes. All the content you'd have to develop just for people to look around... jeezus. Look at it this way: for every day spent developing something for a game, players spend about 2 to 10 minutes enjoying it - depending on the difficulty of the content.
Exploration is easy. Walk to some place, look around, listen to stuff. That's it, 1 minute later and you're done. And it probably takes the development team some 60 work hours to make it.
And just who would such a thing appeal to? There's no game to be had, so it's more like an MMO "Role Simulator."
First of all, let's get this straight: it's not in human nature to explore mountains and valleys. It's in human nature to be curious / inquisitive and inventive, there's a difference (this generalized term is more universal). Exploration doesn't happen only in the wilderness - it happens everywhere.
It's also human nature to use approximations and assumptions. For example, you visit one valley and find nothing interesting. What's the other valley like? You don't care - it's probably just like the first one (there goes all that magical content that took a decade to develop).
Also note that in games: you have no sense of feeling, taste, or smell, so what point is there in exploring artificial nature? Our goal in natural exploration is normally to seek out new sensations and meaningful data - and to test our physical limitations (usually this). There can be none of that in a digital world created by humans because there's no physical interaction.
For all the resources it takes to design and build a massive environment (and nothing else) for a player to muck around in, you could have implemented at least 3 or 4 well-polished and interesting puzzle-like systems with twice as much entertainment value each and in a much smaller / easier to manage area. Puzzle-like systems include but are not limited to: combat, crafting, inventory optimization, economic evaluation, group optimization, tactical logistics engineering, etc. They don't have to be that, but how can you turn exploration into a puzzle when you are barred from what makes it truly rewarding (the other 3 of our 5 senses)?
Without a driving goal and some degree of non-linearity, those systems quickly become boring (which is what is happening with current games). Any system that does not challenge our minds will... especially one we already have a ton of assumptions about - like mountains, hills and valleys. What's there? Dirt, maybe. Some fauna. After a while of exploring what initially appeared to be hills, mountains, and valleys, you start to recall them as map elements or raw data. There was nothing interesting about them - they're just pretty graphics; mere photographs. You'd be better off watching Planet Earth than playing an exploration game.
Case in point: We explore artificial puzzles in games because that's what's interesting with the only two senses available to us. When you make a gimmick out of exploration within the limitations of those two senses, let us know and we'll be happy to check if it's a viable mental challenge. Because you sure in heck won't have any physical challenges in a video game.
Really, simulators just aren't that great. Real life is the best simulator... and if you don't have the drive to drag your ass to Mt. Everest to climb it in reality, why would you bother doing it in a game where you can only get less than 2/5ths of the actual satisfaction? Just go look at a picture. That's the same as simulating it in software.
People conquered Mount Everest or North Pole and if I remember right they didn't get any XP or gear for it. I think a lot of players would like to play a MMORPG where the only aim would be exploring the world.
People climb Everest because it is challenging. People die or fail to go up the mountain constantly. Their reward is the experience of doing it and proving that they have some sort of worth that others lack.
An exploration game. Good. That is a good start. But challenge needs to be added somewhere that can't come from just looking up locations on the net. The next problem is quality content development. This is time consuming. How do you keep people from consuming the content faster than it can be developed? There are certainly ways, but I wouldn't consider them to be fun.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
I've got a little game most of you have never heard of. It's called Love and is being developed by one guy. It might be this guys concept...it might be different...
The alpha reminds me of a spore world put through a photoshop filter.
The guy doesn't hand out vouchers to log in and play, so really, it's exactly what the OP wants: a big game of nothing.
Sounds like a dull boring world to me.. Sorry not trying to troll But hell even explorers in the realworld had to fight off wild animals and savages... Sorry. Just my opinion. I Love to explore but what makes for epic tales are not just tales of braving the elements.. Sure that would be neat but also tales of epic battles won..
if your thinking of something like a Myst mmo where all you do is explore then it wouldn't probably be popular, but it would definitly have a following.
I do agree mmo's tend to be more linear then the older mmo's. I don;t think people explore becuase they don't HAVE to explore. Why go to this edge of the map when my glowing quest map dot says my quest is at the other end. reminds me of old everquest. You had to explore because you didn't have some many indicators telling you exactly what direction to headed to when ever you were trying to find something.
yes new age mmo players might find this kind of thing tedious. however , I think there is a good chunk of players that would go for a hard core game like the old ones.
if your thinking of something like a Myst mmo where all you do is explore then it wouldn't probably be popular, but it would definitly have a following. I do agree mmo's tend to be more linear then the older mmo's. I don;t think people explore becuase they don't HAVE to explore. Why go to this edge of the map when my glowing quest map dot says my quest is at the other end. reminds me of old everquest. You had to explore because you didn't have some many indicators telling you exactly what direction to headed to when ever you were trying to find something.
yes new age mmo players might find this kind of thing tedious. however , I think there is a good chunk of players that would go for a hard core game like the old ones.
In EQ people explored because there were things to find.
Figuring out the soulfire quest is the perfect example of this. Figuring out the quest was a quest unto itself. It took a large community effort to get this one solved. Lots of original EQ was this way. There was stuff everywhere to find.
There were rare named mobs all over the place (sometimes because the place holders for a mob were all over the place and hunting was needed). Odd quests all over the place. Even the time of day had effects on what a person may find. Exploring was done because there was a reward for exploring.
One of the other reasons to explore is there was no reason not to explore. Grinding mobs at location y is just as good as grinding mobs at location z most of the time. A group might even find one of the out of the way places uncamped for better exp than the common over camped places.
Modern MMO's are lacking in this. Even if you get to the remote location there isn't anything there to find.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
I've got a little game most of you have never heard of. It's called Love and is being developed by one guy. It might be this guys concept...it might be different...
Thanks for the link. Pretty awesome game for one guy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Hey OP do not get frustrated, I know what MMORPG means, no need to get all nasty. I just pointed that it looks more of simulation to me, like flight simulator. Is flight simulator a game or simulation? Second life? Or anything simmilar to that. We could discuss toward infinity what is difference between game and simulation, simply your idea is looking to me more of a simulation.
Also we could discuss toward infinity what is role play, so please do not. It was pretty well defined in the begining, but now everything can be considered role play, even being pilot in flight simluator.
Dax.9, I apologize, but I will not follow your advice. I think we should discuss Role Play (RP) because that's the main point of this thread and probably one of the main points in most of the discussions about MMORPG.
For simplicity let's take single-player games. What's the difference between a non RP game and a RP game. In a non RP game you can have only one type of character and the character can evolve only in one predefined direction. In a RP game you can have different type of characters and the most important thing is that you can evolve the character in different ways. You can influence how the character will evolve through time.
You can have two types of RP games:
1. You can have a RP game with several predefined characters and then you have for each character several predefined directions in which they can evolve the character. You as a player are only making choices between different predefined paths. This is how most of MMORPGs work. This is only halfway to true RP.
2. You can have a RP game where there are no limitations how you can evolve your character. Every player can evolve his character in completely different ways. This is true RP. And my game would be closer to this type of RP.
You mentioned Second Life. Second Life is not a MMORPG, because it's not a world. It's a large and empty open space where people can do what they want. A world has to have predefined limitations which are in accordance with it's history and lore. Second Life has no limitations, no history and no lore.
But in Second Life you have RP communities. The theme of RP in defined - for example medieval. Then the rules for RP are defined. Players then decide which role they will play in this community. Then they are playing their role. My opinion is that these communities are probably the only true RPG games on Internet. And if there are a lot of players in these communities then they are probably the only true MMORPGs.
And now something about simulation. Every game is a simulation. The only difference is that a simulation can be more or less realistic. One of the main differences between a non RP game and a RP game is that a RP game is by definition a much more realistic simulation. More realistic is the simulation more true RP is the game.
Very many MMORPGs today is very much in the vein of Diablo .. you can call it action RPG or hack-n-slash game. It distill the whole RPG mechanics into fighting (trash + boss) and cool loot.
This is ultraly fun to many (as in the very successful Diablo & WOW).
I highly doubt people like this kind of game would just want to wander around with nothing to do but only to admire the scenary. I will be bored in 5 min.
A world that large with that good of a graphic will cost billions to make. My personal dream is mmorpg with arcade type of fighting. With competitive arena combat.
You underestimate the effectiveness of procedural content generation to fill in the gaps.
Dax.9, I apologize, but I will not follow your advice. I think we should discuss Role Play (RP) because that's the main point of this thread and probably one of the main points in most of the discussions about MMORPG.
For simplicity let's take single-player games. What's the difference between a non RP game and a RP game. In a non RP game you can have only one type of character and the character can evolve only in one predefined direction. In a RP game you can have different type of characters and the most important thing is that you can evolve the character in different ways. You can influence how the character will evolve through time.
You can have two types of RP games: 1. You can have a RP game with several predefined characters and then you have for each character several predefined directions in which they can evolve the character. You as a player are only making choices between different predefined paths. This is how most of MMORPGs work. This is only halfway to true RP. 2. You can have a RP game where there are no limitations how you can evolve your character. Every player can evolve his character in completely different ways. This is true RP. And my game would be closer to this type of RP.
You mentioned Second Life. Second Life is not a MMORPG, because it's not a world. It's a large and empty open space where people can do what they want. A world has to have predefined limitations which are in accordance with it's history and lore. Second Life has no limitations, no history and no lore.
But in Second Life you have RP communities. The theme of RP in defined - for example medieval. Then the rules for RP are defined. Players then decide which role they will play in this community. Then they are playing their role. My opinion is that these communities are probably the only true RPG games on Internet. And if there are a lot of players in these communities then they are probably the only true MMORPGs.
And now something about simulation. Every game is a simulation. The only difference is that a simulation can be more or less realistic. One of the main differences between a non RP game and a RP game is that a RP game is by definition a much more realistic simulation. More realistic is the simulation more true RP is the game.
A role-playing game (RPG; often roleplaying game) is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
This is actually definition of Role playing games, as we can all see it is not essentialy to have any kind of customisation of the character or his development. And if we look at: "their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game" then we can all agree that MMORPG-s are not role playing games since players do not influence world in any way, exept EVE online and other sandbox games, considering singe player I can remember Deus ex as a true roleplay, where there was acctualy 3 different endings and unfolding of storyline dependent of player choices. But I like to think role playing as what a word really says role play, if I play game I am role playing no matter what I play since it is some fictional game character in that game, not me.
If anyone else has some other idea or some thoughts please say so, I see there is a lot of discussion of what role play acctualy is and I like debating on the subject. But please do not attack or anything like that, I would like to have a productive conversation.
A role-playing game (RPG; often roleplaying game) is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
One might think that's the defintion of an RPG, but the current definition is that it is a game of character stat progression and advancement. The biggest mistake we ever made is shifting the focus of the RPG from the story to character stats.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
A role-playing game (RPG; often roleplaying game) is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
One might think that's the defintion of an RPG, but the current definition is that it is a game of character stat progression and advancement. The biggest mistake we ever made is shifting the focus of the RPG from the story to character stats.
I have taken that from wikipedia, it is not mine definition, if it is outdated then I appologise for providing wrong stuff. And I agree with you, shifting the focus from the story to character stats is big mistake.
I remember when we played table RPGs, only story and campain really mattered, not character status. Ah good old times.
Must share must thought that with great MMORPG expansion and impact on the market we see less and less true role play, it is all turning into some PvP craze, its starting to look like quake 3 arena more and more. Do not get me wrong I like pvp, its just it is becaming primary focus of all players, they do not care why they are acctualy killing other player (why? Is it cause he is arch enemy of state? Has he done something bad, etc), or do they behave like their characters (this is deff a turn off for me, speccialy when I see some Paladin spitting and laugtning on killed corpse of his enemy, I mean he is a Paladin for god's sake).
A lot of comments in this thread were saying that this game would be only about wandering and admiring scenery. This game would be about exploring. There's a huge difference between exploring and just wandering and admiring scenery. It would be like saying that the greatest sailors in human history who explored the oceans of the world were just wandering around the world and admiring scenery.
let me develop the idea of exploring in the game a little further.
1. Death. No one could kill you, but you could still fall from a cliff and dye. You would be resurrected in the nearest hospital. Every NPC settlement would have a hospital. Players could also build hospitals. So if they would be exploring a distant part of the world they could build a hospital there so they would be ressurrected nearby.
2. Eating and drinking. In this world you would have to eat and drink to survive. You could go on a long expedition but if you would stay without food you would dye. You could take food with you - horses and other means of transporting food and other stuff. But more food you would take slower you would progress. Long expeditions would have to be planned very carefully. You could get water from streams, rivers, lakes. You could hunt animals for food (animals would not attack you - no fighting) or lay down traps or you could farm.
3. Solving real world puzzles. You would want to get on the other side of the mountain. There would be a cave system in the mountain. You would have to find a way through the complex 3D labyrinth of the cave system. There would be a large canyon. You would have to find a way to cross that canyon. Probably there would be players who would be guides in this world.
4. Building ships. A group of players would build a ship to sail to another continent. But they wouldn't made the ship strong enough because it would be to expensive so they would all dye in a storm. The weather on the oceans would be dynamic and it would depend on seasons. There would be calm periods and dangerous periods. Probably there would be players who would be experienced sailors, they would know the seas and they would sail the ship safely to another continent.
Without danger (fighting etc), it doesn't sound like much of an adventure. Exploration can't be easy or it wouldn't be rewarding. Humans crave a challenge. Simply traversing land to see yet another sunset wouldn't be truly rewarding because it wasn't really an accomplishment of any great worth.
Although I've never seen the view from atop a great mountain, I imagine it's made more impressive if you've shed some sweat (and a lot of practice climbing) to get there.
A lot of comments in this thread were saying that this game would be only about wandering and admiring scenery. This game would be about exploring. There's a huge difference between exploring and just wandering and admiring scenery. It would be like saying that the greatest sailors in human history who explored the oceans of the world were just wandering around the world and admiring scenery.
let me develop the idea of exploring in the game a little further. 1. Death. No one could kill you, but you could still fall from a cliff and dye. You would be resurrected in the nearest hospital. Every NPC settlement would have a hospital. Players could also build hospitals. So if they would be exploring a distant part of the world they could build a hospital there so they would be ressurrected nearby. 2. Eating and drinking. In this world you would have to eat and drink to survive. You could go on a long expedition but if you would stay without food you would dye. You could take food with you - horses and other means of transporting food and other stuff. But more food you would take slower you would progress. Long expeditions would have to be planned very carefully. You could get water from streams, rivers, lakes. You could hunt animals for food (animals would not attack you - no fighting) or lay down traps or you could farm. 3. Solving real world puzzles. You would want to get on the other side of the mountain. There would be a cave system in the mountain. You would have to find a way through the complex 3D labyrinth of the cave system. There would be a large canyon. You would have to find a way to cross that canyon. Probably there would be players who would be guides in this world. 4. Building ships. A group of players would build a ship to sail to another continent. But they wouldn't made the ship strong enough because it would be to expensive so they would all dye in a storm. The weather on the oceans would be dynamic and it would depend on seasons. There would be calm periods and dangerous periods. Probably there would be players who would be experienced sailors, they would know the seas and they would sail the ship safely to another continent.
Alright, so how would those puzzles be any different from or better than what we already do in games?
How I see it:
1 - invulnerability to other people, the environment can kill you. That's not a very good puzzle due to its linearity - you'd end up avoiding dangerous things instead of inspecting them. If there's no penalty for death, why the heck bother implementing it?
2 - Here's Oregon Trail's one-trick pony. Such a fun game, don't you think? "Oops! You forgot to pack an extra day's worth of supplies, so now you're dead and now you get to start over! FUN!" How is farming even remotely interesting? Your game is really starting to sound like a grind.
3 - Yeah, big obstacles. Those are called environmental hazards or dungeons in other games. The funny thing is: once you figure out these puzzles, there's nothing left to figure out. You can go online and read a strategy guide or have somebody direct you through it - that's not adventure, FYI. It's just a linear puzzle.
4 - Yay for simulated real-life consequences! "If you don't make a good ship, you all get to start over! HA-HA!" Fail a level, start over at square-one. I thought we already designed ourselves out of this mentality. Even pro gamers use save states and checkpoints because repeating the same shit again to get to the point of error is very boring.
Also, how would this magical ship-building system work? Is it a crafting system not unlike any other? Or is it some new technique I have yet to know exists?
You can probably tell that all your ideas really are stemmed from previous ones. So take advantage of that: look at previous designs and see how you can improve them. If you really try to push to be original, you'll get something that seems soul-less and plays poorly.
To design a good game worth the amount of effort it would take to make, you have to consider the development risk vs. reward. If it takes a LOT to develop, but all you get out of it are a few hours of puzzles, you've got a sour design on your hands.
Originally posted by Plasuma!!! 2 - Here's Oregon Trail's one-trick pony. Such a fun game, don't you think? "Oops! You forgot to pack an extra day's worth of supplies, so now you're dead and now you get to start over! FUN!" How is farming even remotely interesting? Your game is really starting to sound like a grind.
If the OP asserted that his game would be more popular than WOW, that might be questionable. But some things to keep in mind:
Lots of people did enjoy Oregon Trail (or at least I did as a kid playing the C64 version.)
More players play Farmville than play WOW. (and Farmville isn't even a good example of a game with farming.)
A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) has zero combat, is all about crafting (some exploration), and has made enough money to survive since 2003 -- and was able to afford to develop a reasonably nice 3D engine in the process.
I don't think a game purely about exploration would be fun (to me at least) but add crafting to the equation and I get suckered in. It becomes empire constructing, which I find fun (even if my empire is one measly farm.)
But I feel one of the best ways to make exploration fun is to make crafting deep. ATITD had artistic sculptures (constructed out of any craftable item, positioned as you saw fit.) Between the sculptures and massive amount of crafting/building in the game, exploration actually became pretty fun -- you got to see all sorts of ways other players played the game, and some of the sculptures were rather impressive.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I would love to play a MMORPG with the following concepts:
1. There would be absolutely no fights in the game: no PvE and no PvP. There would be no NPCs, monsters or animals who would attack you. Of course there would be no weapons and no armors in the game.
2. There would be no levels, XP, achievements. There would be no skills - the only skills that would matter would be the skills of the player. Someone who would play the game for a year would play it better than a newbie only because of his skills as a player - the characters would be absolutely the same.
3. There would be no missions. There would be absolutely no grinding.
What would players do in such a MMORPG? They would explore the world, they would explore the lore, they would socialize and they would build.
1. The graphics would be breathtaking.
2. The world would be huge and very diverse with a complex weather system and with seasons.
3. You would have to explore the world on ground. No flight, no instant jumps. There would be a lot of hidden paths, difficult to find passages over mountains, hidden valleys. You could climb on mountain tops to see some spectacular sunsets. It would take you for example 100 hours or more of gameplay to reach the farthest places of the world. Exploring the world, going where no player went before would be a challenge.
4. By exploring the world and talking to the NPCs you would learn about the fascinating history and lore of the world. Some great and epic stories would be revealed.
5. The players would build houses, cities. They would build roads, bridges. They would build ships so they would be able to explore the oceans on long expeditions.
I think that this kind of MMORPG would be very interesting and very refreshing. I'm interested how many of you would like to play in this kind of MMORPG.
That's a bit like i wish it but with some differences:
1. No heavy graphics, just....good looking and performant, my PC sucks.
2. I want there to be pvp and pve, but people has to: gang up, build a village, raise it up, start militarization and compete with other villages, or make it a feud or a castle, or defend from wild animal's attacks.
Comments
In theory, that's a great idea, it has worked for decades in the text-based MU* world. People make their own fun, they run their own games, they set up their own roleplaying and people stick around these games for decades. Unfortunately, I don't think most people who play MMOs are all that creative, they want things handed to them on a silver platter, they want predefined rules and predefined scenarios and predefined goals so they can gauge their performance against other people.
Take all that away and you have a true sandbox game where the sky is the limit because you can literally do anything.
Given that, it would fail immediately. Most MMO players simply couldn't handle it.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
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So what's your expected budget to develop this game.
And how many subscriber you expect per month.
i want a mmofps from infinity ward. Would be the best game ever!
You want to bet millions dollars on it? I won't.
I agree with previous posters. There is no game here. If you say the gameplay consist of nothing but walking around and looking at pretty scenary .. i will pass. That is BORING.
And I think 99% of the players will agree with me.
The Mount Everest/North Pole analogy is silly. There are may be one in a million people who would like to do that. I am sure the all 300 people who would like your game in the US will subscribe. I hope they are willing to pay you a $100k fee or else I doubt you can afford to make your "game".
You know, a game like that would need some very talented content developers who are not only very well-versed in everything about life, but also very fast at designing and building it all in a digital world. Such developers do not exist and are not humanly possible.
All the design, construction, testing / QC, etc. of such a massive game wouldn't be possible within a lifetime. Or multiple lifetimes. All the content you'd have to develop just for people to look around... jeezus. Look at it this way: for every day spent developing something for a game, players spend about 2 to 10 minutes enjoying it - depending on the difficulty of the content.
Exploration is easy. Walk to some place, look around, listen to stuff. That's it, 1 minute later and you're done. And it probably takes the development team some 60 work hours to make it.
And just who would such a thing appeal to? There's no game to be had, so it's more like an MMO "Role Simulator."
First of all, let's get this straight: it's not in human nature to explore mountains and valleys. It's in human nature to be curious / inquisitive and inventive, there's a difference (this generalized term is more universal). Exploration doesn't happen only in the wilderness - it happens everywhere.
It's also human nature to use approximations and assumptions. For example, you visit one valley and find nothing interesting. What's the other valley like? You don't care - it's probably just like the first one (there goes all that magical content that took a decade to develop).
Also note that in games: you have no sense of feeling, taste, or smell, so what point is there in exploring artificial nature? Our goal in natural exploration is normally to seek out new sensations and meaningful data - and to test our physical limitations (usually this). There can be none of that in a digital world created by humans because there's no physical interaction.
For all the resources it takes to design and build a massive environment (and nothing else) for a player to muck around in, you could have implemented at least 3 or 4 well-polished and interesting puzzle-like systems with twice as much entertainment value each and in a much smaller / easier to manage area. Puzzle-like systems include but are not limited to: combat, crafting, inventory optimization, economic evaluation, group optimization, tactical logistics engineering, etc. They don't have to be that, but how can you turn exploration into a puzzle when you are barred from what makes it truly rewarding (the other 3 of our 5 senses)?
Without a driving goal and some degree of non-linearity, those systems quickly become boring (which is what is happening with current games). Any system that does not challenge our minds will... especially one we already have a ton of assumptions about - like mountains, hills and valleys. What's there? Dirt, maybe. Some fauna. After a while of exploring what initially appeared to be hills, mountains, and valleys, you start to recall them as map elements or raw data. There was nothing interesting about them - they're just pretty graphics; mere photographs. You'd be better off watching Planet Earth than playing an exploration game.
Case in point: We explore artificial puzzles in games because that's what's interesting with the only two senses available to us. When you make a gimmick out of exploration within the limitations of those two senses, let us know and we'll be happy to check if it's a viable mental challenge. Because you sure in heck won't have any physical challenges in a video game.
Really, simulators just aren't that great. Real life is the best simulator... and if you don't have the drive to drag your ass to Mt. Everest to climb it in reality, why would you bother doing it in a game where you can only get less than 2/5ths of the actual satisfaction? Just go look at a picture. That's the same as simulating it in software.
People climb Everest because it is challenging. People die or fail to go up the mountain constantly. Their reward is the experience of doing it and proving that they have some sort of worth that others lack.
An exploration game. Good. That is a good start. But challenge needs to be added somewhere that can't come from just looking up locations on the net. The next problem is quality content development. This is time consuming. How do you keep people from consuming the content faster than it can be developed? There are certainly ways, but I wouldn't consider them to be fun.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
I've got a little game most of you have never heard of.
It's called Love and is being developed by one guy.
It might be this guys concept...it might be different...
The alpha reminds me of a spore world put through a photoshop filter.
The guy doesn't hand out vouchers to log in and play, so really, it's exactly what the OP wants: a big game of nothing.
Sounds like a dull boring world to me.. Sorry not trying to troll But hell even explorers in the realworld had to fight off wild animals and savages... Sorry. Just my opinion. I Love to explore but what makes for epic tales are not just tales of braving the elements.. Sure that would be neat but also tales of epic battles won..
if your thinking of something like a Myst mmo where all you do is explore then it wouldn't probably be popular, but it would definitly have a following.
I do agree mmo's tend to be more linear then the older mmo's. I don;t think people explore becuase they don't HAVE to explore. Why go to this edge of the map when my glowing quest map dot says my quest is at the other end. reminds me of old everquest. You had to explore because you didn't have some many indicators telling you exactly what direction to headed to when ever you were trying to find something.
yes new age mmo players might find this kind of thing tedious. however , I think there is a good chunk of players that would go for a hard core game like the old ones.
In EQ people explored because there were things to find.
Figuring out the soulfire quest is the perfect example of this. Figuring out the quest was a quest unto itself. It took a large community effort to get this one solved. Lots of original EQ was this way. There was stuff everywhere to find.
There were rare named mobs all over the place (sometimes because the place holders for a mob were all over the place and hunting was needed). Odd quests all over the place. Even the time of day had effects on what a person may find. Exploring was done because there was a reward for exploring.
One of the other reasons to explore is there was no reason not to explore. Grinding mobs at location y is just as good as grinding mobs at location z most of the time. A group might even find one of the out of the way places uncamped for better exp than the common over camped places.
Modern MMO's are lacking in this. Even if you get to the remote location there isn't anything there to find.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Thanks for the link. Pretty awesome game for one guy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Hey OP do not get frustrated, I know what MMORPG means, no need to get all nasty. I just pointed that it looks more of simulation to me, like flight simulator. Is flight simulator a game or simulation? Second life? Or anything simmilar to that. We could discuss toward infinity what is difference between game and simulation, simply your idea is looking to me more of a simulation.
Also we could discuss toward infinity what is role play, so please do not. It was pretty well defined in the begining, but now everything can be considered role play, even being pilot in flight simluator.
Dax.9, I apologize, but I will not follow your advice. I think we should discuss Role Play (RP) because that's the main point of this thread and probably one of the main points in most of the discussions about MMORPG.
For simplicity let's take single-player games. What's the difference between a non RP game and a RP game. In a non RP game you can have only one type of character and the character can evolve only in one predefined direction. In a RP game you can have different type of characters and the most important thing is that you can evolve the character in different ways. You can influence how the character will evolve through time.
You can have two types of RP games:
1. You can have a RP game with several predefined characters and then you have for each character several predefined directions in which they can evolve the character. You as a player are only making choices between different predefined paths. This is how most of MMORPGs work. This is only halfway to true RP.
2. You can have a RP game where there are no limitations how you can evolve your character. Every player can evolve his character in completely different ways. This is true RP. And my game would be closer to this type of RP.
You mentioned Second Life. Second Life is not a MMORPG, because it's not a world. It's a large and empty open space where people can do what they want. A world has to have predefined limitations which are in accordance with it's history and lore. Second Life has no limitations, no history and no lore.
But in Second Life you have RP communities. The theme of RP in defined - for example medieval. Then the rules for RP are defined. Players then decide which role they will play in this community. Then they are playing their role. My opinion is that these communities are probably the only true RPG games on Internet. And if there are a lot of players in these communities then they are probably the only true MMORPGs.
And now something about simulation. Every game is a simulation. The only difference is that a simulation can be more or less realistic. One of the main differences between a non RP game and a RP game is that a RP game is by definition a much more realistic simulation. More realistic is the simulation more true RP is the game.
These are just symatics.
Very many MMORPGs today is very much in the vein of Diablo .. you can call it action RPG or hack-n-slash game. It distill the whole RPG mechanics into fighting (trash + boss) and cool loot.
This is ultraly fun to many (as in the very successful Diablo & WOW).
I highly doubt people like this kind of game would just want to wander around with nothing to do but only to admire the scenary. I will be bored in 5 min.
You underestimate the effectiveness of procedural content generation to fill in the gaps.
A role-playing game (RPG; often roleplaying game) is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
This is actually definition of Role playing games, as we can all see it is not essentialy to have any kind of customisation of the character or his development. And if we look at: "their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game" then we can all agree that MMORPG-s are not role playing games since players do not influence world in any way, exept EVE online and other sandbox games, considering singe player I can remember Deus ex as a true roleplay, where there was acctualy 3 different endings and unfolding of storyline dependent of player choices. But I like to think role playing as what a word really says role play, if I play game I am role playing no matter what I play since it is some fictional game character in that game, not me.
If anyone else has some other idea or some thoughts please say so, I see there is a lot of discussion of what role play acctualy is and I like debating on the subject. But please do not attack or anything like that, I would like to have a productive conversation.
One might think that's the defintion of an RPG, but the current definition is that it is a game of character stat progression and advancement. The biggest mistake we ever made is shifting the focus of the RPG from the story to character stats.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
One might think that's the defintion of an RPG, but the current definition is that it is a game of character stat progression and advancement. The biggest mistake we ever made is shifting the focus of the RPG from the story to character stats.
I have taken that from wikipedia, it is not mine definition, if it is outdated then I appologise for providing wrong stuff. And I agree with you, shifting the focus from the story to character stats is big mistake.
I remember when we played table RPGs, only story and campain really mattered, not character status. Ah good old times.
Must share must thought that with great MMORPG expansion and impact on the market we see less and less true role play, it is all turning into some PvP craze, its starting to look like quake 3 arena more and more. Do not get me wrong I like pvp, its just it is becaming primary focus of all players, they do not care why they are acctualy killing other player (why? Is it cause he is arch enemy of state? Has he done something bad, etc), or do they behave like their characters (this is deff a turn off for me, speccialy when I see some Paladin spitting and laugtning on killed corpse of his enemy, I mean he is a Paladin for god's sake).
A lot of comments in this thread were saying that this game would be only about wandering and admiring scenery. This game would be about exploring. There's a huge difference between exploring and just wandering and admiring scenery. It would be like saying that the greatest sailors in human history who explored the oceans of the world were just wandering around the world and admiring scenery.
let me develop the idea of exploring in the game a little further.
1. Death. No one could kill you, but you could still fall from a cliff and dye. You would be resurrected in the nearest hospital. Every NPC settlement would have a hospital. Players could also build hospitals. So if they would be exploring a distant part of the world they could build a hospital there so they would be ressurrected nearby.
2. Eating and drinking. In this world you would have to eat and drink to survive. You could go on a long expedition but if you would stay without food you would dye. You could take food with you - horses and other means of transporting food and other stuff. But more food you would take slower you would progress. Long expeditions would have to be planned very carefully. You could get water from streams, rivers, lakes. You could hunt animals for food (animals would not attack you - no fighting) or lay down traps or you could farm.
3. Solving real world puzzles. You would want to get on the other side of the mountain. There would be a cave system in the mountain. You would have to find a way through the complex 3D labyrinth of the cave system. There would be a large canyon. You would have to find a way to cross that canyon. Probably there would be players who would be guides in this world.
4. Building ships. A group of players would build a ship to sail to another continent. But they wouldn't made the ship strong enough because it would be to expensive so they would all dye in a storm. The weather on the oceans would be dynamic and it would depend on seasons. There would be calm periods and dangerous periods. Probably there would be players who would be experienced sailors, they would know the seas and they would sail the ship safely to another continent.
Without danger (fighting etc), it doesn't sound like much of an adventure. Exploration can't be easy or it wouldn't be rewarding. Humans crave a challenge. Simply traversing land to see yet another sunset wouldn't be truly rewarding because it wasn't really an accomplishment of any great worth.
Although I've never seen the view from atop a great mountain, I imagine it's made more impressive if you've shed some sweat (and a lot of practice climbing) to get there.
Just my 2¢.
so...
Alright, so how would those puzzles be any different from or better than what we already do in games?
How I see it:
1 - invulnerability to other people, the environment can kill you. That's not a very good puzzle due to its linearity - you'd end up avoiding dangerous things instead of inspecting them. If there's no penalty for death, why the heck bother implementing it?
2 - Here's Oregon Trail's one-trick pony. Such a fun game, don't you think? "Oops! You forgot to pack an extra day's worth of supplies, so now you're dead and now you get to start over! FUN!" How is farming even remotely interesting? Your game is really starting to sound like a grind.
3 - Yeah, big obstacles. Those are called environmental hazards or dungeons in other games. The funny thing is: once you figure out these puzzles, there's nothing left to figure out. You can go online and read a strategy guide or have somebody direct you through it - that's not adventure, FYI. It's just a linear puzzle.
4 - Yay for simulated real-life consequences! "If you don't make a good ship, you all get to start over! HA-HA!" Fail a level, start over at square-one. I thought we already designed ourselves out of this mentality. Even pro gamers use save states and checkpoints because repeating the same shit again to get to the point of error is very boring.
Also, how would this magical ship-building system work? Is it a crafting system not unlike any other? Or is it some new technique I have yet to know exists?
You can probably tell that all your ideas really are stemmed from previous ones. So take advantage of that: look at previous designs and see how you can improve them. If you really try to push to be original, you'll get something that seems soul-less and plays poorly.
To design a good game worth the amount of effort it would take to make, you have to consider the development risk vs. reward. If it takes a LOT to develop, but all you get out of it are a few hours of puzzles, you've got a sour design on your hands.
If the OP asserted that his game would be more popular than WOW, that might be questionable. But some things to keep in mind:
I don't think a game purely about exploration would be fun (to me at least) but add crafting to the equation and I get suckered in. It becomes empire constructing, which I find fun (even if my empire is one measly farm.)
But I feel one of the best ways to make exploration fun is to make crafting deep. ATITD had artistic sculptures (constructed out of any craftable item, positioned as you saw fit.) Between the sculptures and massive amount of crafting/building in the game, exploration actually became pretty fun -- you got to see all sorts of ways other players played the game, and some of the sculptures were rather impressive.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That's a bit like i wish it but with some differences:
1. No heavy graphics, just....good looking and performant, my PC sucks.
2. I want there to be pvp and pve, but people has to: gang up, build a village, raise it up, start militarization and compete with other villages, or make it a feud or a castle, or defend from wild animal's attacks.
And much other im too lazy to think of.
isnt that game called blue mars..