There are two sources of what an MMORPG could look like that are still fairly untapped - PnP D&D and fantasy movies. The experience of PnP D&D has yet to be captured. DDO missed the boat, but came closer than many others. Some of the feeling is captured with the advent of voice servers. However, these have become more useful for combat tactical coordination and often have very little to do with roleplaying. Look at the mechanics of a swordfight in your favorite fantasy or martial arts movie and compare to your most recent raid. The differences are partly what make todays MMORPGs so dull. In the movies, you may notice the lack of floating numbers over anyones' heads. You may also notice that when a little guy gets hit by a big guy, the little guy flies across the room, smacks into the wall, and doesn't get up. When someone is set on fire, they (and their armor) burn. There's not a lot of healing during the fights, but bandaging afterwards is important to stop people from bleeding to death. Explosions kill, instantly, and they don't care if you're friend or foe. Two fighters don't stand there whacking each other with rubber swords - they move, a lot. They attempt to get past the opponent's defenses until one delivers a mortal blow to the other - usually one hit one kill. A ranger has a low percentage chance, but can shoot someone in the eye and kill them. What I'm getting at is that combat should be a lot more strategic and less about the damage sponge based combat we have today where the big bad mob is forced to suck health from the "tank", the healer(s) refill the tank's health, and the dps take the health from the mob. Who wants to watch a couple of sponges with little numbers over their heads? Why can't we have dynamic combat where the rogue tricks the mob into a vulnerable position, the cleric blinds the mob with a holy light, the druid lowers the defenses of the mob with some nature-ish spell, the mage zaps the mob in a now exposed vulnerable spot, and the warrior finishes it off with a well-place blow to the neck?
One word - Daggerfall. The pre-Morrowind "Oblivion" of it's day, it had as much of what you're talking about as the technology would allow. You even swung your sword different ways (thrust, overhand slash, diagonal slash, and another I can't remember) by holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse.
This made for some frickin' cool fights, lemme tell you. But... this requires people to actually actively PLAY. And the theme-parkers invented auto-targeting and auto-attack, and thus ended the whole "Errol Flynn" swordfighting in MMOs.
Interestingly, I notice the Wii and the new Project Natal might bring back what Daggerfall and Morrowind had going, as both of them use active control. So in the end, maybe we'll get out of the themeparks and into some real fun. I hope so anyways.
How about a game where death actually means something? Where the whole point of the game is to survive and accomplish quests without dying 200 times and self resurrecting like it's no big deal. And stop with the anime inspired graphics. Armor made out of 2" thick metal plates and 10 foot long swords would not be very useful to people in a fight as they would be far too heavy to budge let alone swing. And enough with dwarves that have no lower legs, just feet attached to where their knees should be.
Originally posted by Plasuma!!! "Lead developer Keita Takahashi said that the team was aiming for four key points in developing the game: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. Iwatani compared the game to Namco's Pac-Man, which focused on simplicity and innovation, and served as a template for future games from the company. At one point during development, Takahashi "proactively ignored" advice from Namco to increase the complexity of the game." Is there anything ignorant about this man? He chose to decline the established dogma of his publisher, and to great success. Had he been ignorant, he would have listened to what he was told by Namco, and we would not have the fun game that is Katamari Damacy.
A great example of a developer having a unique "Philosophy", and then, more importantly, STICKING TO IT.
Using the example above to highlight where mmo's go wrong, IMO, most of the current mmo developers would have taken the advice of their publisher and made the game more difficult. In essence, they would have abandoned one of their core philosophies and replaced it with a new one ( namely, "make money"). And that fundamental change would permeate the game.
If developers could just come form some unique, personal, non-generic philosophies, and then STICK WITH THEM like Takahashi did, we'd get more hits in the mmo world than misses.
*sigh* UO Pre-Trammel.. I would reopen my 3 old UO accounts if I could go back into that wonderful world, before it was nerfed and bunnyfied! The concept beats any fantasy MMOPRG made hands down.
Hard because every player has his own preferrd title, way to play and so on. So there are players that like farming, dungeons, new mobs, hard PvE challeges and so on. And, the other sifde of the medal, there are players that hate PvE and like PvP or RvR based games
In my opinion re-imaging the MMORPG genre is: cancel WoW from your hand, developers. WoW is WoW, and title that copy this game are nice in a few time but ugly on a long time. I played LOTRO (a classic WoW clone) for two years and till Moria was a nice game. But Moria introduces all the things that i hate in WoW: farming, high level istances (i know that there are istances on "classic" LOTRO, but they was easiest than Moria). So, after two years, i quit the game forever.
Now i'm playing on a DAoC unofficial shard and... yes, it's funny! A little farming, great RvR (on frontiers or on BGs), great players: it's all fantastic. I'm rediscovering an old classig game (great till ToA expansion) on it's classsc and old way. And i'm happy.
Why developers must cancel World of Warcraft from brain? Simple: impossible to do better than Blizzard. Only a Blizzard new game can be better tnan a Blizzard old game. So, dear developers, create your games forgetting World of Warcraft. Create new gams with original ideas, don't feel the cut&paste from other titles.
This may have been mentioned but I really think it would be a better idea to journey back to when MMO's had more longevity and examine what "new ideas" have been slowly decaying the MMO industry sense then. Any large organization, industry , military , government or what ever has a tendency for new leadership or heads of development to try to make a name for them selves by making dramatic changes. To the seasoned MMO player this should be one of the most feared things. Not only do they not tend to fix broken things or listen to the actual players rather than forum trolls but they tend to make changes that seem more geared toward adding an item to their job portfolio rather than making a better game a happier place for the players. Usually these changes are not even creative.
Combining game types into the MMO for instance rather than creating a great quality single type game IMO has been a mistake. I think examples can be seen in recent years of failures and low server populations in the newer games.
The sense I had in the thread was a demand for an MMO that ditches questing and levels and items as progression, and creates a society in which the players find their place or places within that. Sounds brilliant. I tried EVE and it didn't take, but I admire EVE. I'm sorry I missed out on this early SWG people mention all the time.
I keep thinking about building such a game around that scene in Aliens... when the Marines and Ripley drop to the planet. The tension is almost unbearable... then the guy in charge is asked how many drops he's done and it's his first. It's a fantastic scene. And why? Because they had no clue what they were getting into and they were risking their lives. And because they were relying on each other. So let's make combat a big deal again. Only ever in a group and if you go on a drop you risk permanent death (one of my favourite games ever was Zangband).
To balance the Marine role, you now build support roles, non-combat roles... activities that have far less risk (usually planetside) once the Marines have cleared any known/perceived danger (successful drops would of course change the danger status of wherever the drops occurred), but always permanent death as the consequence if you do something stupid. If you have permadeath then it's important to let the player manage the risk so you'd have to find a way to improve grouping mechanics. Imagine PUGing with permadeath? I find the hardest thing in an MMO is finding like-minded people... I've been lucky a couple of times but definitely not with every MMO. An MMO that would genuinely help me find other players that have similar gameplay style... that would be something.
Just some thoughts that accumulated throughout the day.
I think the MMO industry can be rebooted very simply. The MMO industry as we know it was started up by tech geeks with no lives who were willing to invest all their time in their gaming obsession because it was a substitute for real life.
Get a handful of middle-aged people who have a family and careers and who would be interested in playing an MMO (and have the money to do so) if only they weren't totally designed for cola-guzzling cheetos-scarfing teens and twenty-somethings and ask them what they'd like to see in an MMO, how they would enjoy playing it, and what would keep them interested.
You'll probably end up with something along the lines of EVE, but with a more diverse at-the-keyboard experience than mining and blasting pirates.
If EVE was a slightly more diverse, traditionally-themed fantasy MMO (with elves and ogres, etc), I'd still be playing. Their offline progression system is brilliant.
From the article: "...we would have to find qualified, competent developers who had never played an MMO... "Just take a minute and consider the possibilities that this might open up. How, for example, would someone who had never head of the concept of instancing decide to tackle their content? How would people unfamiliar with raiding and gear grinding handle the concept of an endgame? The possibilities are endless. "This, my friends, could lead not to the innovation that so many of us have been begging for, but instead to the sense and feeling of true invention that captured so many people's imaginations during the birth of the genre."
I completely disagree. Willful isolation and ignorance is never the correct course of action, it creates a stagnant pool of ideas. In order to fully understand why we have done what we've done, we must examine it carefully and formulate probable solutions from what we know, not from what we don't know.
When we need to design something new, we don't go into a trance-like meditative state and hope the muse strikes in time for the deadline. No, we search for what has been done, why it has been done, how it could be done differently, and how we can improve upon the old formulas if we get no new plausible concepts. It is a very scientific process.
Unfortunately, this process is stripped from game development as people like Bobby Kotick attempt to keep the status quo and live off the fat of the soon-to-be-immobile industry. Complacency leads to stagnancy. We as developers are complacent with our jobs because we're paid to make games, not to innovate. You see where this leads.
New ideas are formulated from old ones. In order to make any use from old ideas, one must first understand them and their nature.
If a developer told to design a massively multiplayer game has never played one, and they are cut off from the rest of the world, the end design will be something akin to the first MUDs - a coarse and unrefined prototype of the MMORPGs we have today. That's taking a step back, not forward. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Innovation stems from knowledge, not ignorance.
I think the idea of having an entirely new crop of developers create something novel is what we all want to see. That is to say, sometimes we do need to reinvent the wheel. Thinking stems from ignorance -ignorance is what allows a person to pursue knowledge. So in the case of games, finding potential flaws in the current model of MMORPGs and correcting them is definitely something worth doing as it leads to innovation, but it doesn't lead to invention as I think Mr. Wood was saying.
World of Warcraft is a prime example of developers innovating the current genre. They had a goal in mind: "Let's make a game that anyone can get into, and let's have it so people can share this experience easily together." The end result was an extremely popular game, but it wasn't something new.
So, while it's not necessary for a developer to have never played an MMORPG before to make something really awesome, I think it is necessary to take a step back - away from the bounds that have defined MMORPGs thus far - to do something really new.
Take the Katamari series for example. There was nothing like it before and it ended up being a big hit. There is room for a new experience in MMORP gaming, the question is: Who is going to step up and make it?
And are gamers open-minded enough to accept it?
Knowledge is never inhibiting, closed-mindedness is.
Ignorance is bliss and willful complacency (it is taking solace in the belief that there is nothing new to explore). It is what defines a closed-minded and mentally stagnant individual.
When you are taught how to do something, or how not to do something, you are establishing dogma and what is known as "functional fixation." That is closed-mindedness: establishing a conclusion and law instead of a theory. Theories can change and be flexible, laws cannot. When one cannot reconsider their position on something, they can be considered defiantly ignorant and closed-minded.
The more you know, the better. But what also matters is how you know.
Innovation happens in a non-linear way: a not-so-obvious solution to a simple problem. You cannot get that unless you understand the problem and what has already been attempted to solve it (lest you be doomed to repeat it).
World of Warcraft took the idea of Ultima Online and Everquest, as is evident from the UI, journal, and combat mechanics, and simply perfected it. The world's innovators are forgotten when the perfectionists take the gold and polish it. You are silly to believe that WoW is an original and innovative concept.
Needless to say, the designer of Katamari Damacy had played many video games before coming up with his own idea.
"Lead developer Keita Takahashi said that the team was aiming for four key points in developing the game: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. Iwatani compared the game to Namco's Pac-Man, which focused on simplicity and innovation, and served as a template for future games from the company. At one point during development, Takahashi "proactively ignored" advice from Namco to increase the complexity of the game."
Is there anything ignorant about this man? He chose to decline the established dogma of his publisher, and to great success. Had he been ignorant, he would have listened to what he was told by Namco, and we would not have the fun game that is Katamari Damacy.
Will Wright is another open-minded individual. He thought up Sim City after playing with a level editor for one of his earlier games. He admitted that the level editor was more entertaining than the game itself, and so he wanted to play with that idea and make it into something other people could enjoy.
If he had never played a video game or even worked on one, we would not have had Sim City, The Sims, or SPORE's amazing creature creator.
Ignorance does not breed innovation. Functional fixation does not breed innovation.
Knowledge and open-minded theory application are the keys to creative invention.
I think we are arguing the same thing here. When reading that Wikipedia article you got that Katamari quote from, I was trying to convey the same message. The team ignored Namco's advice and stayed outside the bounds of what is normally considered during game development - in this case it was game complexity.
As far as WoW goes, there definitely was some innovation to the genre - otherwise it wouldn't have the subs it does. Whether that innovation was intentional or not, the MMO experience suddenly became available to everyone. How they innovated is to be debated, but there is no question that the result was a streamlined MMO experience that definitely has changed the way the world looks at MMOs.
Notice though, that I mentioned they didn't do anything new in terms of design. It was a cookie cutter model, but they set the standard for cookie cutters. If you cannot agree with that then you are being silly; the influx MMOs that follow that model definitely increased post-WoW. As have subs.
I agree entirely with what you say though, there is no way that ignorance can breed innovation because innovation means to make something already existing better. "So, while it's not necessary for a developer to have never played an MMORPG before to make something really awesome, I think it is necessary to take a step back - away from the bounds that have defined MMORPGs thus far - to do something really new." Away from the bounds that have defined MMOs I think relates to your open-minded theory application statement.
Comments
One word - Daggerfall. The pre-Morrowind "Oblivion" of it's day, it had as much of what you're talking about as the technology would allow. You even swung your sword different ways (thrust, overhand slash, diagonal slash, and another I can't remember) by holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse.
This made for some frickin' cool fights, lemme tell you. But... this requires people to actually actively PLAY. And the theme-parkers invented auto-targeting and auto-attack, and thus ended the whole "Errol Flynn" swordfighting in MMOs.
Interestingly, I notice the Wii and the new Project Natal might bring back what Daggerfall and Morrowind had going, as both of them use active control. So in the end, maybe we'll get out of the themeparks and into some real fun. I hope so anyways.
How about a game where death actually means something? Where the whole point of the game is to survive and accomplish quests without dying 200 times and self resurrecting like it's no big deal. And stop with the anime inspired graphics. Armor made out of 2" thick metal plates and 10 foot long swords would not be very useful to people in a fight as they would be far too heavy to budge let alone swing. And enough with dwarves that have no lower legs, just feet attached to where their knees should be.
A great example of a developer having a unique "Philosophy", and then, more importantly, STICKING TO IT.
Using the example above to highlight where mmo's go wrong, IMO, most of the current mmo developers would have taken the advice of their publisher and made the game more difficult. In essence, they would have abandoned one of their core philosophies and replaced it with a new one ( namely, "make money"). And that fundamental change would permeate the game.
If developers could just come form some unique, personal, non-generic philosophies, and then STICK WITH THEM like Takahashi did, we'd get more hits in the mmo world than misses.
*sigh* UO Pre-Trammel.. I would reopen my 3 old UO accounts if I could go back into that wonderful world, before it was nerfed and bunnyfied! The concept beats any fantasy MMOPRG made hands down.
Re-imaging the MMORPG genre is easy and hard.
Hard because every player has his own preferrd title, way to play and so on. So there are players that like farming, dungeons, new mobs, hard PvE challeges and so on. And, the other sifde of the medal, there are players that hate PvE and like PvP or RvR based games
In my opinion re-imaging the MMORPG genre is: cancel WoW from your hand, developers. WoW is WoW, and title that copy this game are nice in a few time but ugly on a long time. I played LOTRO (a classic WoW clone) for two years and till Moria was a nice game. But Moria introduces all the things that i hate in WoW: farming, high level istances (i know that there are istances on "classic" LOTRO, but they was easiest than Moria). So, after two years, i quit the game forever.
Now i'm playing on a DAoC unofficial shard and... yes, it's funny! A little farming, great RvR (on frontiers or on BGs), great players: it's all fantastic. I'm rediscovering an old classig game (great till ToA expansion) on it's classsc and old way. And i'm happy.
Why developers must cancel World of Warcraft from brain? Simple: impossible to do better than Blizzard. Only a Blizzard new game can be better tnan a Blizzard old game. So, dear developers, create your games forgetting World of Warcraft. Create new gams with original ideas, don't feel the cut&paste from other titles.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
This may have been mentioned but I really think it would be a better idea to journey back to when MMO's had more longevity and examine what "new ideas" have been slowly decaying the MMO industry sense then. Any large organization, industry , military , government or what ever has a tendency for new leadership or heads of development to try to make a name for them selves by making dramatic changes. To the seasoned MMO player this should be one of the most feared things. Not only do they not tend to fix broken things or listen to the actual players rather than forum trolls but they tend to make changes that seem more geared toward adding an item to their job portfolio rather than making a better game a happier place for the players. Usually these changes are not even creative.
Combining game types into the MMO for instance rather than creating a great quality single type game IMO has been a mistake. I think examples can be seen in recent years of failures and low server populations in the newer games.
Thinking on and off about this all day...
The sense I had in the thread was a demand for an MMO that ditches questing and levels and items as progression, and creates a society in which the players find their place or places within that. Sounds brilliant. I tried EVE and it didn't take, but I admire EVE. I'm sorry I missed out on this early SWG people mention all the time.
I keep thinking about building such a game around that scene in Aliens... when the Marines and Ripley drop to the planet. The tension is almost unbearable... then the guy in charge is asked how many drops he's done and it's his first. It's a fantastic scene. And why? Because they had no clue what they were getting into and they were risking their lives. And because they were relying on each other. So let's make combat a big deal again. Only ever in a group and if you go on a drop you risk permanent death (one of my favourite games ever was Zangband).
To balance the Marine role, you now build support roles, non-combat roles... activities that have far less risk (usually planetside) once the Marines have cleared any known/perceived danger (successful drops would of course change the danger status of wherever the drops occurred), but always permanent death as the consequence if you do something stupid. If you have permadeath then it's important to let the player manage the risk so you'd have to find a way to improve grouping mechanics. Imagine PUGing with permadeath? I find the hardest thing in an MMO is finding like-minded people... I've been lucky a couple of times but definitely not with every MMO. An MMO that would genuinely help me find other players that have similar gameplay style... that would be something.
Just some thoughts that accumulated throughout the day.
I think the MMO industry can be rebooted very simply. The MMO industry as we know it was started up by tech geeks with no lives who were willing to invest all their time in their gaming obsession because it was a substitute for real life.
Get a handful of middle-aged people who have a family and careers and who would be interested in playing an MMO (and have the money to do so) if only they weren't totally designed for cola-guzzling cheetos-scarfing teens and twenty-somethings and ask them what they'd like to see in an MMO, how they would enjoy playing it, and what would keep them interested.
You'll probably end up with something along the lines of EVE, but with a more diverse at-the-keyboard experience than mining and blasting pirates.
If EVE was a slightly more diverse, traditionally-themed fantasy MMO (with elves and ogres, etc), I'd still be playing. Their offline progression system is brilliant.
I think the idea of having an entirely new crop of developers create something novel is what we all want to see. That is to say, sometimes we do need to reinvent the wheel. Thinking stems from ignorance -ignorance is what allows a person to pursue knowledge. So in the case of games, finding potential flaws in the current model of MMORPGs and correcting them is definitely something worth doing as it leads to innovation, but it doesn't lead to invention as I think Mr. Wood was saying.
World of Warcraft is a prime example of developers innovating the current genre. They had a goal in mind: "Let's make a game that anyone can get into, and let's have it so people can share this experience easily together." The end result was an extremely popular game, but it wasn't something new.
So, while it's not necessary for a developer to have never played an MMORPG before to make something really awesome, I think it is necessary to take a step back - away from the bounds that have defined MMORPGs thus far - to do something really new.
Take the Katamari series for example. There was nothing like it before and it ended up being a big hit. There is room for a new experience in MMORP gaming, the question is: Who is going to step up and make it?
And are gamers open-minded enough to accept it?
Knowledge is never inhibiting, closed-mindedness is.
Ignorance is bliss and willful complacency (it is taking solace in the belief that there is nothing new to explore). It is what defines a closed-minded and mentally stagnant individual.
When you are taught how to do something, or how not to do something, you are establishing dogma and what is known as "functional fixation." That is closed-mindedness: establishing a conclusion and law instead of a theory. Theories can change and be flexible, laws cannot. When one cannot reconsider their position on something, they can be considered defiantly ignorant and closed-minded.
The more you know, the better. But what also matters is how you know.
Innovation happens in a non-linear way: a not-so-obvious solution to a simple problem. You cannot get that unless you understand the problem and what has already been attempted to solve it (lest you be doomed to repeat it).
World of Warcraft took the idea of Ultima Online and Everquest, as is evident from the UI, journal, and combat mechanics, and simply perfected it. The world's innovators are forgotten when the perfectionists take the gold and polish it. You are silly to believe that WoW is an original and innovative concept.
Needless to say, the designer of Katamari Damacy had played many video games before coming up with his own idea.
"Lead developer Keita Takahashi said that the team was aiming for four key points in developing the game: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. Iwatani compared the game to Namco's Pac-Man, which focused on simplicity and innovation, and served as a template for future games from the company. At one point during development, Takahashi "proactively ignored" advice from Namco to increase the complexity of the game."
Is there anything ignorant about this man? He chose to decline the established dogma of his publisher, and to great success. Had he been ignorant, he would have listened to what he was told by Namco, and we would not have the fun game that is Katamari Damacy.
Will Wright is another open-minded individual. He thought up Sim City after playing with a level editor for one of his earlier games. He admitted that the level editor was more entertaining than the game itself, and so he wanted to play with that idea and make it into something other people could enjoy.
If he had never played a video game or even worked on one, we would not have had Sim City, The Sims, or SPORE's amazing creature creator.
Ignorance does not breed innovation. Functional fixation does not breed innovation.
Knowledge and open-minded theory application are the keys to creative invention.
I think we are arguing the same thing here. When reading that Wikipedia article you got that Katamari quote from, I was trying to convey the same message. The team ignored Namco's advice and stayed outside the bounds of what is normally considered during game development - in this case it was game complexity.
As far as WoW goes, there definitely was some innovation to the genre - otherwise it wouldn't have the subs it does. Whether that innovation was intentional or not, the MMO experience suddenly became available to everyone. How they innovated is to be debated, but there is no question that the result was a streamlined MMO experience that definitely has changed the way the world looks at MMOs.
Notice though, that I mentioned they didn't do anything new in terms of design. It was a cookie cutter model, but they set the standard for cookie cutters. If you cannot agree with that then you are being silly; the influx MMOs that follow that model definitely increased post-WoW. As have subs.
I agree entirely with what you say though, there is no way that ignorance can breed innovation because innovation means to make something already existing better. "So, while it's not necessary for a developer to have never played an MMORPG before to make something really awesome, I think it is necessary to take a step back - away from the bounds that have defined MMORPGs thus far - to do something really new." Away from the bounds that have defined MMOs I think relates to your open-minded theory application statement.
Which FF Character Are You?