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"Bring Back the Magic" How would you restore glory to MMORPG's?
Angelof2070
Member Posts: 224
Feel free to list reasons as simple and as complex as need be.
Ultima Online Everquest 1 brought about a "magic" to it. Why?
Most people would argue that it's because those were the FIRST and ONLY MMORPG's around, and that alone made them amazing, something special.
What's your take on it?
What's your ideal MMO?
And how would you "Bring Back the Magic" or do you think it's long gone?
Comments
World of Warcraft.
But with more added World Stuff tagged along
Force a big company to release a quality sandbox on par with the top games and advertise it.
That's about it. Of course, you would have to force them to actually release it finished and well tested (paid professional beta testers anyone? Whatever happened to those?) so it wouldn't tank.
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Get rid of chat. After that, all MMOs will be more tolerable.
It's not about one-upping the next guy. With the hype levels and budget levels of MMOs today, this trend can do nothing but crash like the stock market of months ago.
It's about trimming the fat. You want to 'bring the magic back'? Then what you need is a game that has been designed and cared for from the core outwards, with scrutiny applied to every mechanic and their inter-workings. Create a world full of co-dependant mechanics, with players' influences being felt with the world and each other. Make sure you are bug-free, and that no mechanic or class is OP or needs nerfing.
Then, and only then, add filler. Give me quests and options for exploration- but give me just a couple sprinkles. Don't make it so there are enough to turn into a grind. Make it so I must come up with my own methods of advancing. Make it so I don't have a 1-button access to instant groups or anything else that 'facilitates' my goals. Instead, give me a game that encourages, nigh requires, player interaction for any sort of advancement- be it group content or solo.
The magic stems from player-to-player interaction. All the big name games of years past were 'magically' because they were new, sure, because they were were designed, sure, but because at the root of it all, we shared all those things with our in-game friends.
Were we are today is at a point that we believe 10000 quests are going to make a good game, that burning 300million in voice-overs and content development will produce a solid product... we need to return to the roots. Give me a well polished game, but that game must promote those interactions.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Bring back the variety that existed in the old days. You had different games that catered to many different play styles allowing different caliber of gamers to find a home and actually play instead of sitting in a forum like this and reminiscing about days long gone.
There needs to be a good sci-fi game, medieval fantasy, post apocalyptic, and any other twist you can think and THEN release them in 2 flavors. Theme park and sandbox and let the people choose all the while sticking to the original design and not bending to the constant bleating of the lambs who complain how one game isn't like the other.
Then take all the stuff Pojung said and cram it into every one of those games I mentioned above and you'll more then likely have great success unless of course by the time you make this nobody plays games anymore, but I find this hard to believe....
Then again... in the state that this genre is in that last scenario is just crazy enough to happen.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
RuneQuest online without massive multiplayer ,wtb
Generation P
Give me the fun, structured content of a AAA themepark MMO.
Give me the wide, open world of a sandbox MMO.
Give me RvR with more than 2 factions.
Give me deep crafting.
Give me non-combat content and mechanics that support Roleplay.
Now give me all that in one game.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
A better virtual world design with fully useable buildings and doors.
An Item creation system based on crafting that gives the player GPAPHIC control of the end product. Player Designed Gear!!
At least 12 races that are NOT ALL HUMANOID!! and a great character design feature.
At least 12 very basic classes.
An VERY long list of acquirable skills such as Duel wield, charm animal, nukes, Platemail, dots, heals etc available to ALL characters but extremely difficult to obtain. A system where your hard work could truly make your character EPIC!!
Partial Player controlled transportation similar to EQ. Every player having the option of acquiring this ability.
Slower leveling!!! More dungeons, More instances, more more more. fewer open spaces.
AND FINALY!!!!
A vocal range for every character adding to realism.
Example - as you get closer to someone their chat gets louder, as you get further away it gets quieter.... This would make the chaos of cities actually chaotic... which I personally would enjoy. Nothing bothers me more than standing in the middle of a crowd of completely silent players. why should we use a secondary program to vocal chat. implement it into the gaming experience and bring the game to LIFE. There is nothing wrong with a little chaos.
BoB
Your firstest MMO is bestus MMO evar. This is almost univerally true. It doesn't matter if it was Ultima Online, EQ1 or WoW. You're never going to relive that first blush experience.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
The "Magic" of MMORPGs is not lost. Well, it may be for you, but it is definitately not for some millions other gamers enjoying their games.
1 + 1 = 2... Unless it CRITS!
Allow players to change the game world.
The more you do that, the more magic you'll get.
Open wide world, sandbox style with no levels. 3 factions(at least), player driven economy and a mix of questing(short quest stories that stands alone) and general xp gain from kills and PvP.
Above all freedom....
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
Totally agree, i still believe blizzards next mmo might be a sandbox, flame me how much ever you want...I have hope!
Blizzard has always been smart with it's development time, it's marketing, and it's "It will be done when it's done we're not going to rush it" attitude with past games (though I wasn't crazy about Warcraft III at all, but that's just me). I'd be very surprised if their top secret IP fails. IF... and I say IF it is a "hardcoar sandzobox" IP that racks up another 11 million subs then so be it.
That way, once Blizzard dominates the majority of both sides of MMO gaming as it is today, something new will emerge that'll be breathtaking, innovative and epic that breaks away from the closed box thinking of "themepark/sandbox"... and a new era will begin. Either that or Blizzard's going to skip the step where they're overshadowed and the IP they're going to throw out now blows sandbox/themepark away.
If anyone can do it I think Blizzard can.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
Once upon a time I started a MMORPG a real RPG MMO and I worked on it by myself for hours and hours. I dreamed of the world of Whren (the r is silent) so I dreamed of the world I called the Kingdom of When. I dreamed of the wide open spaces and freedom to do whatever I wanted and not be confined. I dreamed of freedom to become what I wanted to become in a fantasy of my mind. Then one day I told someone else about the Kingdom of When and they laughed at me and said dream on buddy.
I worked and worked on it and realized they were right so I made it a hobby and moved on to other things but over the last year I redesigned the Kingdom of When and brought it life. Of course it is so lacking and not worthy of mention. There is nothing there but a landscape but the principle of wide open and freedom is.
I updated this today for you
http://www.bundysoft.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=31
Now I will put it back on the shelf for a while and maybe someday program some program to make the grass and trees. Maybe next year or the year after I will finish that then again maybe never. I like my private server and the few friends I have that dream of the dream you dream of but alas..
I can't let you in.
I think MMOs are trying to blow too many people at once, always gaining the support of some and alienating the rest with every move. Games need to pick a crowd and work with it, that means doing something, and doing it really good instead of doing tons of this marginally. Because of that, good games tend to be held as the only game in a company's MMO roster, and ones that handle a hub like Aeria tend to shovel many mediocre ones around. If only the two methods could mix; where painstaking diversity from other titles are made on a single product, then held on a portal with other games in their own niche.
The truth is that niche games are the best ones, because people wouldn't be playing them if they didn't swear by them. This proves a huge division of tastes beyond how a game plays, all the way down to theme and whether it has elves or not. Therefore, there will be no more million-player games like WoW - simply because WoW *introduced* all the new players in one swath that's ever going to be to the MMO market. Now MMOs are a household name and the crowd that came in with Blizzard are going to walk to games catered to their tastes, now that they simply *know* about them now.
Expect the first portal to handle a dozen completely dissimilar games of epic quality to be the next big-thing, because no single one will ever hold the same mass appear. As for the "magic", people are looking everywhere for it, only some are finding it. Proof it's just a matter of time that the MMO-going community will remain fractured by the 100's of titles at hand.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
IMO, I feel it was because they were the first of there kind, so it was a new and amazing way to play video games at the time. Now, all MMO's have turned more towards being console games. They are more casual friendly, linear, and instant gratification heavy...and less community oriented, challenging, and open feeling.
- HUGE open world. No invisible walls funneling you from one area to another.
- Meaningful quests. VERY LITTLE (I mean 10% at most as fill-ins) "Collect/Kill X amount of X" quests. Very few quests in general..make it more like old UO. An open world to explore and discover, but with an occasional hidden quest, etc with a rich story arc with meaning. Also that affects the game environment. Which leads to...
- Players being able to alter the game environment. Through deeds, quests, or (For PvP) possible faction war territory takeovers.
- CHALLENGE. Slower progression, stiff death penalty (EQ-like meaning possible XP loss, and/or corpse run needed), more intelligent and unpredictable AI (That use teamwork, call in reinforcements, etc.) and simply don't stand around waiting for you to come by a cleave them.
- Meaningful Crafting. EVERYTHING has a use immediately, no crafting fodder. Also, all world gear drops would simply be aesthetic. HOWEVER, players that are crafters can alter such gear to have benefits for the wearer, making Blacksmithing, gem-cutting, etc viable and make the economy more robust. You could have 10 of the same piece of gear in the AH (If that feature is added) that have 10 different benefits settings and/or looks, because not only could you add stat benefits, but other decorative pieces to the existing armor to set it apart from the rest, applying pieces where you wish (pre-determined positions would probably have to be considered, but numerous).
- No instances, no instant transportation (although a class that has a teleportation ability spell may be viable).
- Land and sea travel.
- Starting map blacked out. Unlock it as you explore. (Also makes for a Cartographer crafting ability).
- Numerous races/classes (Lots of choice is always good)
Just my own personal ideas. /shrug
The reason for that was that they were new thinking and fresh. Now we have had 10 years with EQ and other games that are very similar.
The first thing I would change would be combat. The old EQ system we all know is getting really old. Kill the cooldowns and either makes it point based or make the animations longer. Make spells chargable, when you click it the first time a bar starts filling, then you release it when you feel for it making more damage the longer it takes (but the spell fizzles if you let the bar overfills). I would also add parrys, if an attack actually takes a bit of sword swinging to land it is easy to put in some parry mechanics too.
This would require a good ping but the net is getting better..
I would also change the AI, the current sucks. No tanking, smarter mobs and more strategic combat. Stand in the right place to body-block the mobs and to get a bonus for higher ground or partly cover.
Questing is another thing that should change. I don't need a quest telling me to kill 20 rats, I can grind xp fine by myself, thankyou. Quests should be large and interesting. Fewer but longer and more well written quests.
Crafting also should be a lot better. I want to design my items, with a certain look and certain bonuses. I don't know why this is so hard, right now all games are focusing on grinding the crap you need to make them. And i also don't want to make loads of useless crap before I can do something good.
The best way to bring back the magic is by actually making something new and fresh, not by recycling EQ. Jopefully will Guildwars 2 deliver.
I started with Everquest. Like everyone else who started with EQ I pretty much think it was the best thing since sliced bread. I have that insane nostalgic feeling that everyone around here knows so much about (directly or indirectly).
While I agree that some of that magic comes from it being my first MMORPG, I don't believe that is the only reason. Why? Because many of its features have not been duplicated since. Not in the same game at least. I think all of these features together are responsible for the insane feeling of immersion I got from that game. My argument is It's not really about nostalgia as much as it is about immersion. I think there are several factors which create a sense of immersion inside of a game.
1) I think a (nearly) forced first-person-view (as was in Everquest) is vital to this and I think this aspect of the game gets overlooked a lot. You pretty much had to play in first-person view because the other views sucked. The game was built around this mode. I think one of the reasons most people remember this game so vividly and can tell you exactly what happened on certain days is due to this. Sometimes immersion and gameplay are at odds. I'll admit third-person is probably a better view for gameplay, but first-person is better for immersion.
Sure, you could use first-person in WOW, but the game wasn't designed for it and it showed. No first-person models (sword swinging, casting) and the scale of the view was completely off.
2) A strong death penalty. Yeah, this tired old argument and I can almost feel the anger already that is going to come from bringing this up, but it's true. A strong death penalty added A LOT to the immersion. Yeah, it freaking sucked when I died and had to regain my experience back I had just spend all evening getting. It sucked during the times I died deep in some dungeon by some insane mob train that just steam-rolled my group and I had to get my corpse back. But it all served a very important purpose: It made dying very scary and added tremendously to the immersion factor because of this.
In no other game have I been so terrified of dying. It literally made me sweat. Who needs that shit in a game? Well, it's not fun when it happens, but that's not really the big picture. The idea is if it's scary to die it makes the game a real adventure. Adventure = immersive. Immersion = Fun.
3) Grouping. While less important for immersion than the other two, I believe this to be very important as well. You had to group in Everquest unless you were one of maybe 2 or 3 classes. Well, maybe more could but it was horribly inefficient. Grouping was incredibly important to the building of a online community. Yeah, every game has grouping, but in EQ you really had to rely on others if you were going to get very far in the game. If not for mobs than for other things.
I don't think Everquest got this perfect. I personally think [U]every[/U] class should be able to solo effectively, but not efficiently compared to a group. Why is this fair to people who prefer to solo? Because you don't need others, group-oriented people do. If everyone in the zone is grouped it doesn't present a problem to your play style. The reverse is not true. Therefore, I believe future games that want immersion to be a selling point should focus more on encouraging grouping.
4) Mystery. This one might be hard to do again like it was in Everquest. The internet has grown so much. Back when I played EQ there were no real guide sites like thottbot or anything like that. Most secrets were passed from word of mouth or found by accident. Everquest put all kinds of secret doors and areas in it's game. Noone really knew anything about the game for quite a bit of time after it was released. It was also the first of its kind which, of course, it impossible to get back.
I do thing they could work on the mystery by adding so many little secrets that there is no way for a casual player to know them all. A mysterious world is one with adventure and adventure is immersive.
Immersion (in the end) is fun. If you didn't play EQ during the 1999-2000 era then you've never really experienced this. To those who have and hated EQ, well, agree to disagree. I think most of us that played want that feeling back and we old EQ players are so passionate about this subject because the game we want literally does not exist anymore. I'm hoping someone will start working on a game that is built around maximum immersion as a niche because you are probably not going to out-wow, wow.
Erase your gamerelated memory and a lot of MMO's will give you that 'magic'experience.
Hybrid sandbox / themepark. It's the next gen of mmos. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's lots of cool new innovation to be seen in the future, but slap wowish gameplay smack in the middle of pre-cu swg and you've got a game so full of win that it's scary.
Give me the fun, structured content of a AAA themepark MMO.
Give me the wide, open world of a sandbox MMO.
Give me RvR with more than 2 factions.
Give me deep crafting.
Give me non-combat content and mechanics that support Roleplay.
Now give me all that in one game.
<nods>
A lot of what we want in MMOs is found in single-player games. An MMO is simply Oblivion/Dragon Age with updates (downloadable content) and the other people. All of these aspects aren't really what make an MMO, because I can find them easily in other games, what makes an MMO are the people. Everquest 1's success was from everyone playing it, it was like that single player game you played on a console, but with the whole continent! What an idea! What will bring back the magic of MMOs? What makes the magic for WoW? The people. Simply having everyone there together creates the magic, whether it be RP or PvP, it's the people. What I remember and miss most from my MMO days was that feeling of community and togetherness, my guild and my friends, and hell even the trolls in world chat. The people make the game. Thanks for your time
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. - Voltaire
i5-750 OC'd to 4.0Ghz - PNY GTX 470 Performance Edition - Western Digital 2X2TB in RAID 0 - Samsung BD Drive - 4GB DDR3 2000Mhz - CM Storm Scout
Give me the fun, structured content of a AAA themepark MMO. a la WOW
Give me the wide, open world of a sandbox MMO. a la DFO, MO or EVE
Give me RvR with more than 2 factions. a la DAOC
Give me deep crafting. a la SWG pre NGE
Give me non-combat content and mechanics that support Roleplay. - a la Second Life
Now give me all that in one game.
<nods>
If someone could figure out a way to incorporate all that for under 250M USD it would be a truely amazing game, but would probably cost us all 29.99/mo and a 99.00 box fee.
Some of your requests are mutually exclusive though, the freedom of a true sandbox game cannot exist with themepark design. Now, if you meant large open world like VG or DFO had, then you might have a chance.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
one thing I have noticed with new games coming out is the huge lack in classes. Take everquest for example (one of the starters of the genre), it had 15 or 16 classes at release and a large selection of playable races as well. With that many classes there is bound to be one that appeals to almost every player out there. They were also unique classes and not just a cookie cutter with different skill names. This was huge for me when I started playing MMOs.
Now take the latest mmo I played at release, Aion. It has 2 factions (though you can pretty much customize your character to look like any type of race you would want) and a total of what? 4 classes with 2 sub classes per class for a total of 8. The sad thing is they were mostly cookie cutters of each other. temp = tank, glad = dps. etc etc. they are not unique at all. most games now adays lack the depth of numerous unique classes to get a large variety of people pumped about being able to play the specific kind of character they want.
Im a big fan of PvP but if a PvE game came out that had a large variety of classes and depth of content like EQ, EQ2, Vanguard do I would play them in a heart beat. the reason i dont play the previously mentioned is because they have population problems and have been knocked down to skeleton dev groups because SOE sucks balls and destorys almost every game it touches.
Give us a game with a huge amount of classes or give me a sandbox like UO and that would restore the glory for me.
I am still in awe that no one has tried to recreate a UO game yet. mortal online being the closest Ive seen but it may tank because of it being released unfinished with little content. UO 2 would give me a perma boner.