My problem with the way full loot PvP tends to be structures is that it naturally promotes 'less challenging' PvP.
eg. If you kill a player you might get 10 gold worth of loot from him. However, if he is at 5% health and fighting a mob, you still get the full 10 gold when you kill him in that condition. The less challenging the fight is, the easier the kill and thus more efficient in the reward/effort calculation. Thus the system will promote the 'least common denominator' style of PvP.
Now if the system gave you only 1 gold for killing someone when they are at 5% health but the full 10 gold for killing him at 100% health more players would opt for the 'higher challenge' fight so they can get the full reward. The worse the odds against you, the higher the reward should be.
When you see the hardcore PVPrs begging for cheap and unimportant gear right after saying how they want hardcore full loot, you realize that yes, most people can't handle full loot.
The main reason why pvpers want that should be simple to understand. We want for PVP to be about our player skill. I don't want to lose a fight to someone just because they had on awesome, rare equipment
But here is the beauty and elegance of a full loot MMO (like EVE online, etc). Say some nerd has the ultimate weapon, like a Titan (in EVE). Titans take months to make and are insanely expensive or at least were in my time pre-Domination expansion
So it was rare to see a Titan.
This balances out PVP a bit and make it more bout player skill. Cause people were scared to bring overpowered crap to every little fight. This allowed lots of great fights were people were flying lots of cheap ships (tier 1 -> low tier 2 like HACs). Even newbies came along with us in gangs and got some kills. And due to uber ships being super expensive, they were rare to see (like a tier 3).
Ever see a vet use greens in WoW when they had Epics available to them? No you won';t. But in EVE, people will pvp in cheap t1/t2 ships all the time. I know myself I'd only bring out my super expensive ships for rare occasions.
My problem with the way full loot PvP tends to be structures is that it naturally promotes 'less challenging' PvP. eg. If you kill a player you might get 10 gold worth of loot from him. However, if he is at 5% health and fighting a mob, you still get the full 10 gold when you kill him in that condition. The less challenging the fight is, the easier the kill and thus more efficient in the reward/effort calculation. Thus the system will promote the 'least common denominator' style of PvP. Now if the system gave you only 1 gold for killing someone when they are at 5% health but the full 10 gold for killing him at 100% health more players would opt for the 'higher challenge' fight so they can get the full reward. The worse the odds against you, the higher the reward should be.
In most full loot MMO like EVE Online for instance-- you don't engage in dangerous fights like this. Think bout it. If you let a mob bring you down to 5% health and die--- you will surely lose your loot to the NPC. That would be crazy
In EVE, you can lose your loot to both players and NPCs upon death. So when you engage in dangerous PVE you do it either in high sec or with a 'gang'. Additionally, you have an escape plan
Lastly, you also have 'intel'. In EVE, when an enemy tresspass into your space, your alliance mates will broadcast this intel. Thus, you use this information to get to safety until the danger leaves.
So yes in EVE people get ganked all the time while fighting an NPC however most people with any sense are going to be fighting an easy rat. However if a pirate happens to gank a player thats running a site then yes you are right
However, in full loot MMOs done right like EVE you'll have Intel channels. I played EVE for over 2 years and never got ganked myself. but I did gank others plenty and yes they were softer targets but they were easily tanking the mobs if you follow.
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
So what I understand up to now is that peoples do not like the feeling that they can loose something? Inst that boring? To know that there is no wrong way so whatever you do is right? Where is the challenge? Where is the reward?
Hey mind if I rob your house? Take everything, and leave you there to start from nothing
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
SWG, in the old days, had a pretty good system for losing at PVP when you were a jedi - you didn't lose items or gold, you lost a tonne of xp. Personally, this seemed to work as far as I was concerned - however, it meant I didn't enter any PVP I couldn't win and whenever I met a tinwked out Bounty Hunter, I ran away.
Ultimately a full-loot PVP game is unworkable. It means that all gameplay is restricted to a small number of highly equipped players who can prevent all newcomers from progressing. Such a game is not financially sustainable.
What’s to discuss? “THE TRUTH: Most people just cannot handle full loot…” It would be nice if you actually proposed a discussion but that would require a definition of what you mean by “full loot.”
However, if you are referring to the random murder of a fellow player just so you can rummage though his/her hard earned gains; that is called stealing.
Ultimately a full-loot PVP game is unworkable. It means that all gameplay is restricted to a small number of highly equipped players who can prevent all newcomers from progressing. Such a game is not financially sustainable.
Some like it some dont, some like somthing in between, I do recall in AC and some others one would lose 1 or 2 of there most valuable items on death + a penalty to there stats untill they hunted X% worth of exp. This system gave us a nice mix of both worlds a true since of loss yet one that could easily be buffered for instance we would go out and buy high value "jumk" items they where stron strong than the gear we used but easier to come by and it didn't gimp us to lose it of course this ment every time you died and didnt get to loot your own body that you had to restock your death items which could get costly you also lost a % of the coin that was on you to buffer this out we would buy notes which could be converted back to coin via vendors but had a low calculated value them selves thus would not end up as death loot less thats all you had on you. Over all this was my fav death penalty it caused us to avoid death at all cost yet when it happened it wasnt the end of the world, it didn't cost us huge down time waiting for a rez sick to ware off and if you where well established and had the coin you coudl suffer several deaths with out any major impact to your holdings.
Here is my suggestion not that you asked for it, for note I like either of the middle options but am not a fan of full looting; I just dont have the time to invest any more in a game where I can lose every thing thogh I do like the idea and if I could play as i did when I was younger then I would be all for it.
Truly casual death penalty:
More or less DAoC, WoW, Aion, EQ2, etc. have this just right a minor set back but nothing that can kill your game. The draw back is that death isnt really any thign to be woried about.
Intermediat death penalty:
Such as Asheron's Call penalty, 1 or 2 of your most valuable (in terms of cash value) items drop with your body the killer (and or his group/guild) has loot rights and the player him self has loot rights. In addition to the 1 or 2 items you also lose a % of your liqued cash. This system requiers you to have a few high valued items on you the better the gear you use the more valuable the "death" items will need to be that or you lose your working gear losing a % of the cash on you is no wory you shouldn't have more than you might need, banks should be position fairly inconvently so that you cant just store all of your money in the bank thus leaving nothng or very little for the victor when you die in the same you should have banks so they cant clean you out if you have a bad day i.e. keep your nest egg in the bank but you have to cary some on you so you can buy your consumables, pay for transportation and what not. This death penalty applies in PvE as well and the courpse timer means that you have to go back to the point of death to loot your body with in a resonable time that or some else might loot it. On top of the loot and cash you do lose a % of your stats somthing small 3 or 4% but that adds up so you wouldn't want to just go zerging around all day even if you had the coin to spare, the only way to undo this %degridation to your stats is to succsfuly hunt i.e. exp earned from PvP or PvE not just quest turn ins
Slightly hard core death penalty:
Any thing in your bags including your bags if the game has such an inventory system can be looted however equipment on you can not be looted again this is to insure that your game is not stoped jsut because you die but your loot is seriously hurt. In addition the % stat degigation applies thus preventing thouse who dont mind losing whats in teh bag from having no penalty on death perhaps the % of the degigation is based on the value of the loot you droped i.e. if you have a full bag you only suffer a 2 or 3% hit if you had nothing in your bag you might lose 8% or somthing harsher thus inspiring you to leave some goodies for the victor that or take a bigger hit to your own game.
Truly hard core death penalty:
You die your body can be looted, every thing on it can be looted, again you have a hit to your stats that can only be undone by succsful hunting as with the above this penalty should be scaled up base on what loot you drop i.e. if you go ass clowing around completly nude thus leaving nothing for the victor of the fight then you take a heavy penalty if you leave the dragons hord worth of loot behind perhaps you have no penalty either way your game will be hurt by death just how its hurt depends on what the vector got out of the kill.
Now you cant have more than 1 method in a game I'm not suggesting any diffrent mearly that there are diffrent kinds of MMOers and thus diffrent types of games. Sadly at the moment any way we only have 2 options supper hard core full loting and supper carebare null penalty I for one would like somthing inbetween the 2. It does hurt the fun of the game for me any way when I have no fear of death of course it also hurts the fun of the game for me when I cant get a foot hold and lose all of my progress (which isn't much to begin with do to my limited play time) just because I died.
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
The mass market is playing World of Warcraft. When you design a new MMO, you should be thinking of what type of game to make for the 'niche' audience.
Until publishers and wannabe designers figure this out- we will continue to see WoW clones fail left & right
I miss full loot rights.. aka.. Dry Looting. There was nothing funnier than the days of listening/watching somebody cry and threaten harm to themselves as you cut up their armor or tossed the weapon they'd farmed in to the trash. Meh... it is a new age of gaming. The "hardcore" players are now time investors.. and the "pvp" players are now called unstable or anti-social. Things have changed quite a bit from the day when gaming was dangerous, exciting and fun.
The fact that you enjoy the first highlighted sentence sort of proves the case for the 2nd one.
Finding enjoyment in the pain of others is a bit twisted no matter how you look at it.
As for full loot, I don't care for it. Neither do most people who claim that they do, they make sure they are always on the winning end of the fight by either ganking lower level players or running in packs that can never lose.
I play EVE, but only because its pretty easy to avoid losing my stuff, even when I'm in low sec or 0.0.
I avoid DF because I believe that it would be far more difficult to prevent being looted, and I'm just not into that.
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
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
I agree and disagree at the same time;
1st I do think the "mass market" has gotten so big that you cant fully appeal to the who MMO market at least not adequetly, if you want proof look at what we have atm. WoW is a good game, it appeals to a large margen of the market though not all of it and I would say a fairly large % of its player base play it not because it is the perfect for for them but because it is the best fit at the moment for them. MMOs trying to appeal to the whole market are doomed to fail I do belive having said that we can see that there is room for diversity (gasp diversity in the MMO genre say it isnt so)
For example we have games like EVE, its a good game well done and very popular with a section of the market, it has full loot and more, if you die you affectivly lose your body (ship) and have to buy another beyond that tarvil and other non fun things (for the avrage gamer) take a huge amount of time; does this mean the game sucks? yes it does for a % of the market for the rest it rocks and is the best option out atm. EVE isn't the only game like this; a game that really aims to please its % of the market and says sqrew the rest, I wish there where more games that targeted a sector of the market and did every thing they could to bring the best game for that sector like looting systems, rule sets, etc. that may not be "mass market" friendly but that are exsactly (or as close as possible) to what that sector wants. This idea of target MMOs is nothing new in gaming as a whole but it seems that every AAA MMO out at the moment is striving hard as hell to appeal to *every* gamer when they should be targeting a sub set and dalivering gold as opposed to the steamers we have been seeing as of late.
So back to your post; you sugested that full looting hurts the players investment and thus imersion in the game and I agree that for gamers like you (and me for that matter) it does but I disagree that it cant be a viable option if the target market is the player that prefers a more simulation like or other wise "harde core gamer" as they like to call them selves. To create a stonger link between the player and the game you need to daliver a system that appeals to that player and players are far to diverse to appeal to them all for that matter I argue that we are far to diverse to even appeal to the majority of us to such a level as to create a deep level of imersion/attachment.
Not really adding anything new, but I believe theres a difference between the inability to handle full loot and flat out not enjoying it.
Best way I could attempt to make sense of it would be relating it to a job. You can do what is asked of you at your workplace, but the chance of you enjoying it is close to nil. Now what I wouldnt mind at all is dropping a percentage of what youre carrying- say 10%. Even if I lost that stuff, I wouldnt feel like I wasted time mindlessly.
I play mmos for the feeling of progression. Full loot games just make the experience more FPS ish. Might as well play counterstrike. And to restate- that feeling isnt because I cannot handle it. Its because I dont find it fun.
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
The mass market is playing World of Warcraft. When you design a new MMO, you should be thinking of what type of game to make for the 'niche' audience.
Until publishers and wannabe designers figure this out- we will continue to see WoW clones fail left & right
I Agree; developers need to stop trying to appeal to the "mass market" and go back to building great games for a target auidance, and the target should focused enough that one can address said targets completly or as completly as the current state of technology allows. This would mean that we have full tilt "hard core" games as well as the "carebare" games and every thing in between. My biggest problem with MMO games atm is that they are all trying to please every one resulting in bland, easy mode carbon copies of once great games. The few titles out there that are trying to break the pattern tend to get trashed on by people in this forum and understandably by virtue of appealing to 1 focused group you will be leaving another out for some reason the current gamers seem to think that every game should be aimed at them as if we all have the same likes and dislikes. The MMO genre isnt the tiny little thing it was 10 years ago, you cant ask the community at large what they want and expect to get 1 strait answer back, I have argued for some time that MMO needs to be subdivided into sub-genre so we can get some focus on the various flavors and perhaps get some discusion that arn't flaming rants over what we dont like over there and more focus on what we would like over here and to some extent we have it I suppose with Sandbox vs Theampark but its more than that we have RPG, Adventure, Instanced, Open,, PVE, PVP, polar (2 faction) non polar (3+ faction or no factions) etc. each leands to a diffrent style of MMO each favors a diffrent type of player and I think we have enough MMO gamers to warent having more than 1 top AAA MMO.
According to Jim, it is the truth, nothing to discuss.
Cerealisly, it may be your truth, but I would have to say that most players that actually play any full loot game, don't have a problem losing things. After all, they have chosen to partake. I would say that most people have more of a problem with the usual shenanigans that are associated with full loot environments. So, as mentioned, most rational people will just choose to not deal with it.
Come on How can I ever write anything better, crisp clear.
I play to enjoy company of people I respect, not hanging around people I need a million dollar salary to tolerate their presence. And I already earned more than enough from work, that I do not want that million dollar paycheck after work. Punt intended.
This "risk" can be too much for anyone, it just depends on a few subjective concepts on barriers that may reduce the potential fun too much to be worth it. EVE for example has a very gentle full loot (well, not really "full" as the ship vaporizes upon explosion and something like half of the cargo too) with ship insurance, cargo loss upon death (making kamikaze attempts less attractive), modules that can be used indefinitely (talking about durability, not ammunition), and a huge "safe" area, the 0.5 and higher security rating systems in which the majority of the players live most of their game time within.
UO... err... Trammel and nowadays insurance, so never mind, no one that fears item loss too much will ever have to face it if he wants no chance of suffering it.
Darkfall... hmm, haven't played the game so I'm not really going to comment on it.
Personally I fear more these gambling systems than full looting. You know, these magical upgrading systems that have a risk of item loss and also which the outcome is way too good to be neglected, and that usually are in F2P games. Monetizing fear by taking out the negative effect possibilities if you pay enough in real money. Those that pay more will relatively have better equipment and a true advantage
Not really adding anything new, but I believe theres a difference between the inability to handle full loot and flat out not enjoying it. Best way I could attempt to make sense of it would be relating it to a job. You can do what is asked of you at your workplace, but the chance of you enjoying it is close to nil. Now what I wouldnt mind at all is dropping a percentage of what youre carrying- say 10%. Even if I lost that stuff, I wouldnt feel like I wasted time mindlessly. I play mmos for the feeling of progression. Full loot games just make the experience more FPS ish. Might as well play counterstrike. And to restate- that feeling isnt because I cannot handle it. Its because I dont find it fun.
Full loot games like EVE Online does not take away from progression at all. And there's nothing 'FPS' bout EVE Online in the least. As a matter of fact, it probably has more progression than the average MMO. It literally would take 20+ years to maxout all the skills.
Granted, you do lose assets upon death but it's just that- assets (ship, guns, and fittings).
And thats the great thing bout that sort of game. People treat their equipment as 'tools'. In WoW and other such EQ-style games I ahve found players sort of worship their material items which is really strange and shallow too me. But thats just me
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
The mass market is playing World of Warcraft. When you design a new MMO, you should be thinking of what type of game to make for the 'niche' audience.
Until publishers and wannabe designers figure this out- we will continue to see WoW clones fail left & right
I Agree; developers need to stop trying to appeal to the "mass market" and go back to building great games for a target auidance, and the target should focused enough that one can address said targets completly or as completly as the current state of technology allows. This would mean that we have full tilt "hard core" games as well as the "carebare" games and every thing in between. My biggest problem with MMO games atm is that they are all trying to please every one resulting in bland, easy mode carbon copies of once great games. The few titles out there that are trying to break the pattern tend to get trashed on by people in this forum and understandably by virtue of appealing to 1 focused group you will be leaving another out for some reason the current gamers seem to think that every game should be aimed at them as if we all have the same likes and dislikes. The MMO genre isnt the tiny little thing it was 10 years ago, you cant ask the community at large what they want and expect to get 1 strait answer back, I have argued for some time that MMO needs to be subdivided into sub-genre so we can get some focus on the various flavors and perhaps get some discusion that arn't flaming rants over what we dont like over there and more focus on what we would like over here and to some extent we have it I suppose with Sandbox vs Theampark but its more than that we have RPG, Adventure, Instanced, Open,, PVE, PVP, polar (2 faction) non polar (3+ faction or no factions) etc. each leands to a diffrent style of MMO each favors a diffrent type of player and I think we have enough MMO gamers to warent having more than 1 top AAA MMO.
I agree. I think the issue we have now is that all these new MMOs are trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. Take Champions Online for instance. It has some pvp, pve, instances, and items to an extent. Heck, it even has crafting.
So what we have now is a rushed game that doesn't really do anything right in my opinion beyond character creation. Nothing bout the title is seriously notable or something people will talk bout years to come gameplay wise.
But if they would've focused on their strengths and just picked an area and polished it (like just PVP for instance and left out Crafting and end game instances and items) - at least gamers would've walked away thinking 'Well at least it had awesome PVP and I will return in a few months for the Crafting'
Right now, we are looking at a crapload of WoW clones like Age of Conan, etc that spread themselves too thin during development instead of simply focusing on one aspect and release with that. Sure, you only appeal to a 'niche' but perhaps this niche will remain loyal like people did with EVE Online and you'll grow from 5k subs to 300k+++
CCP released a youtube video called 'HTFU' and it's so accurate. New MMOs got a lot of catching up to do if they wanna compete with WoW / EVE, etc.
the problem with people not wanting full loot is because they dont realize that for that system to work the market needs to be different.
in games where you can loose all your stuff, usually, that stuff is crafted by someone. (preferably someone who made their gaming carreer as a crafter) so if there is demand for it then replacing the stuff you just lost is not so bad.
business rules can apply in games with the right economy. for example in eve, a fully industrial/mining corporation can make battleships by the dozen every day. if people loose battleships everyday there are more to buy. thus prices become more tolerable.
in eve loosing a frigate (T2) or a cruiser (t2) isnt that bad, i can replace it no problem. 2 lvl 4 missions (solo) can replace T2 frigate. (and that can be done in about 1-2 hours)
now my expensive ships i know i cant replace as easely so i use them on rare occasions (when risk is minimal)
but with games like WoW where goober gear is hard to get and time consuming and rare i would understand how someone would be pissed at full loot, though they have to keep in mind that these games do not have the same "loot/market system"
so games like WoW or AoC or Aion or WAR or EQ2 will not work with a full loot system (even if you put open world pvp)
but games like eve, darkfall, mortal online would work, simply becaus 98% of the items (including the good ones) are player crafted and easy to replace.
loot in eve is mostly generic items that usually end up going in the refinery to make minerals.
and yes there is also the taking cheap ships to go out for some meaningless pvp (aka cause havoc in enemy territory) because you know you are being reckless and chances are that you will lose that ship, but meh, that ship cost you pocket change. but for strategical strikes or important ops (aka taking over a system) you will take your most powerfull ship for the role you want to play because its not only your ship that is at stake but your whole freiken alliance's shit too, including titans and dreads and carriers.
all this just to say that full loot works in games where the economy and market is 95% or more player made. you get shit from people and not from monsters.
Comments
My problem with the way full loot PvP tends to be structures is that it naturally promotes 'less challenging' PvP.
eg. If you kill a player you might get 10 gold worth of loot from him. However, if he is at 5% health and fighting a mob, you still get the full 10 gold when you kill him in that condition. The less challenging the fight is, the easier the kill and thus more efficient in the reward/effort calculation. Thus the system will promote the 'least common denominator' style of PvP.
Now if the system gave you only 1 gold for killing someone when they are at 5% health but the full 10 gold for killing him at 100% health more players would opt for the 'higher challenge' fight so they can get the full reward. The worse the odds against you, the higher the reward should be.
Discuss what? That we're not stupid enough to want full loot? I don't know that requires any discussion.
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The main reason why pvpers want that should be simple to understand. We want for PVP to be about our player skill. I don't want to lose a fight to someone just because they had on awesome, rare equipment
But here is the beauty and elegance of a full loot MMO (like EVE online, etc). Say some nerd has the ultimate weapon, like a Titan (in EVE). Titans take months to make and are insanely expensive or at least were in my time pre-Domination expansion
So it was rare to see a Titan.
This balances out PVP a bit and make it more bout player skill. Cause people were scared to bring overpowered crap to every little fight. This allowed lots of great fights were people were flying lots of cheap ships (tier 1 -> low tier 2 like HACs). Even newbies came along with us in gangs and got some kills. And due to uber ships being super expensive, they were rare to see (like a tier 3).
Ever see a vet use greens in WoW when they had Epics available to them? No you won';t. But in EVE, people will pvp in cheap t1/t2 ships all the time. I know myself I'd only bring out my super expensive ships for rare occasions.
In most full loot MMO like EVE Online for instance-- you don't engage in dangerous fights like this. Think bout it. If you let a mob bring you down to 5% health and die--- you will surely lose your loot to the NPC. That would be crazy
In EVE, you can lose your loot to both players and NPCs upon death. So when you engage in dangerous PVE you do it either in high sec or with a 'gang'. Additionally, you have an escape plan
Lastly, you also have 'intel'. In EVE, when an enemy tresspass into your space, your alliance mates will broadcast this intel. Thus, you use this information to get to safety until the danger leaves.
So yes in EVE people get ganked all the time while fighting an NPC however most people with any sense are going to be fighting an easy rat. However if a pirate happens to gank a player thats running a site then yes you are right
However, in full loot MMOs done right like EVE you'll have Intel channels. I played EVE for over 2 years and never got ganked myself. but I did gank others plenty and yes they were softer targets but they were easily tanking the mobs if you follow.
Can't handle it, or choose not to?
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
Can't handle it, or choose not to?
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
Hey mind if I rob your house? Take everything, and leave you there to start from nothing
Can't handle it, or choose not to?
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
SWG, in the old days, had a pretty good system for losing at PVP when you were a jedi - you didn't lose items or gold, you lost a tonne of xp. Personally, this seemed to work as far as I was concerned - however, it meant I didn't enter any PVP I couldn't win and whenever I met a tinwked out Bounty Hunter, I ran away.
Ultimately a full-loot PVP game is unworkable. It means that all gameplay is restricted to a small number of highly equipped players who can prevent all newcomers from progressing. Such a game is not financially sustainable.
What’s to discuss? “THE TRUTH: Most people just cannot handle full loot…” It would be nice if you actually proposed a discussion but that would require a definition of what you mean by “full loot.”
However, if you are referring to the random murder of a fellow player just so you can rummage though his/her hard earned gains; that is called stealing.
DUH REALLY!?! You mean people don't like being stolen from? Gasp!
What? Soooo you never heard of EVE Online then?
Some like it some dont, some like somthing in between, I do recall in AC and some others one would lose 1 or 2 of there most valuable items on death + a penalty to there stats untill they hunted X% worth of exp. This system gave us a nice mix of both worlds a true since of loss yet one that could easily be buffered for instance we would go out and buy high value "jumk" items they where stron strong than the gear we used but easier to come by and it didn't gimp us to lose it of course this ment every time you died and didnt get to loot your own body that you had to restock your death items which could get costly you also lost a % of the coin that was on you to buffer this out we would buy notes which could be converted back to coin via vendors but had a low calculated value them selves thus would not end up as death loot less thats all you had on you. Over all this was my fav death penalty it caused us to avoid death at all cost yet when it happened it wasnt the end of the world, it didn't cost us huge down time waiting for a rez sick to ware off and if you where well established and had the coin you coudl suffer several deaths with out any major impact to your holdings.
Here is my suggestion not that you asked for it, for note I like either of the middle options but am not a fan of full looting; I just dont have the time to invest any more in a game where I can lose every thing thogh I do like the idea and if I could play as i did when I was younger then I would be all for it.
Truly casual death penalty:
More or less DAoC, WoW, Aion, EQ2, etc. have this just right a minor set back but nothing that can kill your game. The draw back is that death isnt really any thign to be woried about.
Intermediat death penalty:
losing a % of the cash on you is no wory you shouldn't have more than you might need, banks should be position fairly inconvently so that you cant just store all of your money in the bank thus leaving nothng or very little for the victor when you die in the same you should have banks so they cant clean you out if you have a bad day i.e. keep your nest egg in the bank but you have to cary some on you so you can buy your consumables, pay for transportation and what not. This death penalty applies in PvE as well and the courpse timer means that you have to go back to the point of death to loot your body with in a resonable time that or some else might loot it. On top of the loot and cash you do lose a % of your stats somthing small 3 or 4% but that adds up so you wouldn't want to just go zerging around all day even if you had the coin to spare, the only way to undo this %degridation to your stats is to succsfuly hunt i.e. exp earned from PvP or PvE not just quest turn ins
Such as Asheron's Call penalty, 1 or 2 of your most valuable (in terms of cash value) items drop with your body the killer (and or his group/guild) has loot rights and the player him self has loot rights. In addition to the 1 or 2 items you also lose a % of your liqued cash. This system requiers you to have a few high valued items on you the better the gear you use the more valuable the "death" items will need to be that or you lose your working gear
Slightly hard core death penalty:
Any thing in your bags including your bags if the game has such an inventory system can be looted however equipment on you can not be looted again this is to insure that your game is not stoped jsut because you die but your loot is seriously hurt. In addition the % stat degigation applies thus preventing thouse who dont mind losing whats in teh bag from having no penalty on death perhaps the % of the degigation is based on the value of the loot you droped i.e. if you have a full bag you only suffer a 2 or 3% hit if you had nothing in your bag you might lose 8% or somthing harsher thus inspiring you to leave some goodies for the victor that or take a bigger hit to your own game.
Truly hard core death penalty:
You die your body can be looted, every thing on it can be looted, again you have a hit to your stats that can only be undone by succsful hunting as with the above this penalty should be scaled up base on what loot you drop i.e. if you go ass clowing around completly nude thus leaving nothing for the victor of the fight then you take a heavy penalty if you leave the dragons hord worth of loot behind perhaps you have no penalty either way your game will be hurt by death just how its hurt depends on what the vector got out of the kill.
Now you cant have more than 1 method in a game I'm not suggesting any diffrent mearly that there are diffrent kinds of MMOers and thus diffrent types of games. Sadly at the moment any way we only have 2 options supper hard core full loting and supper carebare null penalty I for one would like somthing inbetween the 2. It does hurt the fun of the game for me any way when I have no fear of death of course it also hurts the fun of the game for me when I cant get a foot hold and lose all of my progress (which isn't much to begin with do to my limited play time) just because I died.
Can't handle it, or choose not to?
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
The mass market is playing World of Warcraft. When you design a new MMO, you should be thinking of what type of game to make for the 'niche' audience.
Until publishers and wannabe designers figure this out- we will continue to see WoW clones fail left & right
The fact that you enjoy the first highlighted sentence sort of proves the case for the 2nd one.
Finding enjoyment in the pain of others is a bit twisted no matter how you look at it.
As for full loot, I don't care for it. Neither do most people who claim that they do, they make sure they are always on the winning end of the fight by either ganking lower level players or running in packs that can never lose.
I play EVE, but only because its pretty easy to avoid losing my stuff, even when I'm in low sec or 0.0.
I avoid DF because I believe that it would be far more difficult to prevent being looted, and I'm just not into that.
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Can't handle it, or choose not to?
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
I agree and disagree at the same time;
1st I do think the "mass market" has gotten so big that you cant fully appeal to the who MMO market at least not adequetly, if you want proof look at what we have atm. WoW is a good game, it appeals to a large margen of the market though not all of it and I would say a fairly large % of its player base play it not because it is the perfect for for them but because it is the best fit at the moment for them. MMOs trying to appeal to the whole market are doomed to fail I do belive having said that we can see that there is room for diversity (gasp diversity in the MMO genre say it isnt so)
For example we have games like EVE, its a good game well done and very popular with a section of the market, it has full loot and more, if you die you affectivly lose your body (ship) and have to buy another beyond that tarvil and other non fun things (for the avrage gamer) take a huge amount of time; does this mean the game sucks? yes it does for a % of the market for the rest it rocks and is the best option out atm. EVE isn't the only game like this; a game that really aims to please its % of the market and says sqrew the rest, I wish there where more games that targeted a sector of the market and did every thing they could to bring the best game for that sector like looting systems, rule sets, etc. that may not be "mass market" friendly but that are exsactly (or as close as possible) to what that sector wants. This idea of target MMOs is nothing new in gaming as a whole but it seems that every AAA MMO out at the moment is striving hard as hell to appeal to *every* gamer when they should be targeting a sub set and dalivering gold as opposed to the steamers we have been seeing as of late.
So back to your post; you sugested that full looting hurts the players investment and thus imersion in the game and I agree that for gamers like you (and me for that matter) it does but I disagree that it cant be a viable option if the target market is the player that prefers a more simulation like or other wise "harde core gamer" as they like to call them selves. To create a stonger link between the player and the game you need to daliver a system that appeals to that player and players are far to diverse to appeal to them all for that matter I argue that we are far to diverse to even appeal to the majority of us to such a level as to create a deep level of imersion/attachment.
Most people want to play to relax, not be ganked by psycopaths.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Not really adding anything new, but I believe theres a difference between the inability to handle full loot and flat out not enjoying it.
Best way I could attempt to make sense of it would be relating it to a job. You can do what is asked of you at your workplace, but the chance of you enjoying it is close to nil. Now what I wouldnt mind at all is dropping a percentage of what youre carrying- say 10%. Even if I lost that stuff, I wouldnt feel like I wasted time mindlessly.
I play mmos for the feeling of progression. Full loot games just make the experience more FPS ish. Might as well play counterstrike. And to restate- that feeling isnt because I cannot handle it. Its because I dont find it fun.
Can't handle it, or choose not to?
Full Loot, like a fresh steaming turd attracts the worst sort imo. Aside from that observation... design wise it is bad for long term play. Character growth happens through progression, which is not only unstable and inconsistent, but often times ruined altogether by full loot. I love pvp, I even enjoy some penalties, but full loot hurts the character as an avatar and in its place makes them no more than a tool for pvp. Emotional attachment is the key to immersion and long term play, good developers will create that link between player and character, not ruin or damper it with a system that includes full loot.
I'm no carebear in terms of play style and pvp, but the designer side of me understands why full loot is bad for mass market appeal within the mmorpg genre.
This has nothing to do with 'mass market appeal'. When you are a publisher you are just looking at what can make you profit. Making a pure WoW clone isn't all that profitable apparently seeing all these clones sink left & right
EVE Online had a bigger market share then LOTRO, EQ2, and many other WoW clones last time I looked at charts.
So the designer in you is perhaps not aware of what type of game can sell perhaps? Which would be understandable because designers job is to make a good game. I don't think a designer should even be required to make a WoW clone beyond copy/pasting quest text
The mass market is the profit. Publisher's are not known to be smart, they do however TRY to take less risks. You will not see them make a full loot mmorpg for the reason that it represents only a small target audience, it is for this reason you see only small european studios attempting to make those types of games. EVE was lucky, since the Theme is most of the games appeal, which just so happened to work well with a smaller but consistent market.
Actually the designers job is not so vague as to just make a good game. If you are a creative director (the top dog of designers), you create what is called a GDD or Game Design Document, which is includes but not limited to details on the target market, how big it is, age range, the types of people who sum up your market...ect They often work with the marketing ppl to get a better idea of how the game can be realized, in addition they talk with the producers and publisher to hit the largest market, this is all taken into account when designing a game. If a game does poorly, thats a bad mark for any creative director... A successful game does more for them than an attempt at appealing to a hard core but ultra small niche. ;-)
The mass market is playing World of Warcraft. When you design a new MMO, you should be thinking of what type of game to make for the 'niche' audience.
Until publishers and wannabe designers figure this out- we will continue to see WoW clones fail left & right
I Agree; developers need to stop trying to appeal to the "mass market" and go back to building great games for a target auidance, and the target should focused enough that one can address said targets completly or as completly as the current state of technology allows. This would mean that we have full tilt "hard core" games as well as the "carebare" games and every thing in between. My biggest problem with MMO games atm is that they are all trying to please every one resulting in bland, easy mode carbon copies of once great games. The few titles out there that are trying to break the pattern tend to get trashed on by people in this forum and understandably by virtue of appealing to 1 focused group you will be leaving another out for some reason the current gamers seem to think that every game should be aimed at them as if we all have the same likes and dislikes. The MMO genre isnt the tiny little thing it was 10 years ago, you cant ask the community at large what they want and expect to get 1 strait answer back, I have argued for some time that MMO needs to be subdivided into sub-genre so we can get some focus on the various flavors and perhaps get some discusion that arn't flaming rants over what we dont like over there and more focus on what we would like over here and to some extent we have it I suppose with Sandbox vs Theampark but its more than that we have RPG, Adventure, Instanced, Open,, PVE, PVP, polar (2 faction) non polar (3+ faction or no factions) etc. each leands to a diffrent style of MMO each favors a diffrent type of player and I think we have enough MMO gamers to warent having more than 1 top AAA MMO.
Discuss?
According to Jim, it is the truth, nothing to discuss.
Cerealisly, it may be your truth, but I would have to say that most players that actually play any full loot game, don't have a problem losing things. After all, they have chosen to partake. I would say that most people have more of a problem with the usual shenanigans that are associated with full loot environments. So, as mentioned, most rational people will just choose to not deal with it.
Come on
How can I ever write anything better, crisp clear.
I play to enjoy company of people I respect, not hanging around people I need a million dollar salary to tolerate their presence. And I already earned more than enough from work, that I do not want that million dollar paycheck after work. Punt intended.
Thanks Captain Obvious.
This "risk" can be too much for anyone, it just depends on a few subjective concepts on barriers that may reduce the potential fun too much to be worth it. EVE for example has a very gentle full loot (well, not really "full" as the ship vaporizes upon explosion and something like half of the cargo too) with ship insurance, cargo loss upon death (making kamikaze attempts less attractive), modules that can be used indefinitely (talking about durability, not ammunition), and a huge "safe" area, the 0.5 and higher security rating systems in which the majority of the players live most of their game time within.
UO... err... Trammel and nowadays insurance, so never mind, no one that fears item loss too much will ever have to face it if he wants no chance of suffering it.
Darkfall... hmm, haven't played the game so I'm not really going to comment on it.
Personally I fear more these gambling systems than full looting. You know, these magical upgrading systems that have a risk of item loss and also which the outcome is way too good to be neglected, and that usually are in F2P games. Monetizing fear by taking out the negative effect possibilities if you pay enough in real money. Those that pay more will relatively have better equipment and a true advantage
Full loot games like EVE Online does not take away from progression at all. And there's nothing 'FPS' bout EVE Online in the least. As a matter of fact, it probably has more progression than the average MMO. It literally would take 20+ years to maxout all the skills.
Granted, you do lose assets upon death but it's just that- assets (ship, guns, and fittings).
And thats the great thing bout that sort of game. People treat their equipment as 'tools'. In WoW and other such EQ-style games I ahve found players sort of worship their material items which is really strange and shallow too me. But thats just me
The mass market is playing World of Warcraft. When you design a new MMO, you should be thinking of what type of game to make for the 'niche' audience.
Until publishers and wannabe designers figure this out- we will continue to see WoW clones fail left & right
I Agree; developers need to stop trying to appeal to the "mass market" and go back to building great games for a target auidance, and the target should focused enough that one can address said targets completly or as completly as the current state of technology allows. This would mean that we have full tilt "hard core" games as well as the "carebare" games and every thing in between. My biggest problem with MMO games atm is that they are all trying to please every one resulting in bland, easy mode carbon copies of once great games. The few titles out there that are trying to break the pattern tend to get trashed on by people in this forum and understandably by virtue of appealing to 1 focused group you will be leaving another out for some reason the current gamers seem to think that every game should be aimed at them as if we all have the same likes and dislikes. The MMO genre isnt the tiny little thing it was 10 years ago, you cant ask the community at large what they want and expect to get 1 strait answer back, I have argued for some time that MMO needs to be subdivided into sub-genre so we can get some focus on the various flavors and perhaps get some discusion that arn't flaming rants over what we dont like over there and more focus on what we would like over here and to some extent we have it I suppose with Sandbox vs Theampark but its more than that we have RPG, Adventure, Instanced, Open,, PVE, PVP, polar (2 faction) non polar (3+ faction or no factions) etc. each leands to a diffrent style of MMO each favors a diffrent type of player and I think we have enough MMO gamers to warent having more than 1 top AAA MMO.
I agree. I think the issue we have now is that all these new MMOs are trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. Take Champions Online for instance. It has some pvp, pve, instances, and items to an extent. Heck, it even has crafting.
So what we have now is a rushed game that doesn't really do anything right in my opinion beyond character creation. Nothing bout the title is seriously notable or something people will talk bout years to come gameplay wise.
But if they would've focused on their strengths and just picked an area and polished it (like just PVP for instance and left out Crafting and end game instances and items) - at least gamers would've walked away thinking 'Well at least it had awesome PVP and I will return in a few months for the Crafting'
Right now, we are looking at a crapload of WoW clones like Age of Conan, etc that spread themselves too thin during development instead of simply focusing on one aspect and release with that. Sure, you only appeal to a 'niche' but perhaps this niche will remain loyal like people did with EVE Online and you'll grow from 5k subs to 300k+++
CCP released a youtube video called 'HTFU' and it's so accurate. New MMOs got a lot of catching up to do if they wanna compete with WoW / EVE, etc.
the problem with people not wanting full loot is because they dont realize that for that system to work the market needs to be different.
in games where you can loose all your stuff, usually, that stuff is crafted by someone. (preferably someone who made their gaming carreer as a crafter) so if there is demand for it then replacing the stuff you just lost is not so bad.
business rules can apply in games with the right economy. for example in eve, a fully industrial/mining corporation can make battleships by the dozen every day. if people loose battleships everyday there are more to buy. thus prices become more tolerable.
in eve loosing a frigate (T2) or a cruiser (t2) isnt that bad, i can replace it no problem. 2 lvl 4 missions (solo) can replace T2 frigate. (and that can be done in about 1-2 hours)
now my expensive ships i know i cant replace as easely so i use them on rare occasions (when risk is minimal)
but with games like WoW where goober gear is hard to get and time consuming and rare i would understand how someone would be pissed at full loot, though they have to keep in mind that these games do not have the same "loot/market system"
so games like WoW or AoC or Aion or WAR or EQ2 will not work with a full loot system (even if you put open world pvp)
but games like eve, darkfall, mortal online would work, simply becaus 98% of the items (including the good ones) are player crafted and easy to replace.
loot in eve is mostly generic items that usually end up going in the refinery to make minerals.
and yes there is also the taking cheap ships to go out for some meaningless pvp (aka cause havoc in enemy territory) because you know you are being reckless and chances are that you will lose that ship, but meh, that ship cost you pocket change. but for strategical strikes or important ops (aka taking over a system) you will take your most powerfull ship for the role you want to play because its not only your ship that is at stake but your whole freiken alliance's shit too, including titans and dreads and carriers.
all this just to say that full loot works in games where the economy and market is 95% or more player made. you get shit from people and not from monsters.