very well said. yes, sadly most mmos today focus on that level up path and barely even focus on the story driving it let alone anything else. hell, several of the the most recent mmo games didnt even get the core systems down come launch time. it seems like its getting to be all about box sales with new mmos only to have the game limp along to milk the sad few who actually cling on with their subscription.
Ironically.. the game that I believe is the best example of all the above is Star Wars Galaxies. I know players love to bash the game... and the dead horse has been beaten over and over again for years upon years now. But really, in terms of full developped systems, on current games (not their launch-versions)... Galaxies has a surprisingly high number of these kinds of 'preferred' game features. SWG Tutorial is basic,but it gets you there, including crafting, space flight, combat, entertainment. SWG Housing.. for a combat game, is outstanding. There are some breathtaking player-created houses in Galaxies. There is a wide variety of housing (mostly crafted, see below) SWG Crafting.. in-depth, functional, a complete system with 3 classes of its own. Crafted items are desired, purchased and add depth to the game (clothing & armor is almost exclusively crafted). Crafting is a cornerstone of Galaxies... not an afterthought. SWG Economy... not the best, not EvE.. but still functional. SWG Malleable World... there is SOME kind of worldwide change since the last game Update on the Galactic Civil War (GCW). Your factional 'presence' affects regional spawns and interplanetary scores (and factional item costs). Its not a dramatic change, but there is a 'factional' team score system in place. SWG Grouping... some improvements here to. Player search (by profession) helps.. but the new 'group pickup' instant travel makes it easier to team up together. The tutorial does not touch grouping however.. perhaps some day. SWG Social.... Entertainers.. you can play Galaxies and never shoot a single creature to level up as an Entertainer. Entertainers do provide buffs to other characters but also are the 'tools' use for character appearance changes (hairstyles, height, age). The sad thing is.. players are simply too hung up on the whole Next Generation Enhancement (NGE) 'betrayal' and their anger about the changes to the combat-based classes that they abandoned this otherwise well-rounded game. Space, Ground, Crafting, Housing, Entertainment, Chronicals, Collections, Herioc Instances, Faction Combat, Bounty Hunting... all tied together in a 6 year old MMO. If SWG was launched as it is today, without the history 'baggage', and a few visual upgrades (and a few less fairy wings)... I bet the hype-meter would be pretty high overall. Galaxies is not new, its not perfect, its not all-about-Jedi... but it certainly has a wide array of systems and player interests that it still, to this day, despite all the nay-sayers and dooms-day predictions, is fun to play. Too bad soo many of us are missing out. I'd encourage you all to take a 2nd look at the game, put your blinders on, IGNORE the forums and really explore what Galaxies has to offer.
i agree
swg did exemplify what this post was about
especially crafting iv never seen a better crafting system then swg's
pre-nge swg was and sadly still is the ideal game for me
and we will probably never see its like again
the thing that pissed me off about the NGE was one particular part of the update
its that they took our ability to dictate who our character was in the swg univers and stuck us in "Iconic" cookie cutter classes like in every other MMO out there
thats what pissed me off most about the NGE the rest of what i didnt like i could of lived with
and its something there "expertese system" could never hope to replace
and they took some features i liked out like CH but again i could of lived with that part
and i saw they replaced ch in a recent revisit to the game
Games certainly need to let the community drive the market/economy.
EQ early on didn't have the easy tools to make selling fast or convenient. But player to player interaction made it. It took play time, allowed for socialization, and created work for reward. Finding that new helm at a good price meant face to face haggle sessions. I loved hanging out in the EC tunnel.
The other thing games need is a good world as the article mentions, and methods to put the social back in game. The lack of that is one reason I've been on the longest retirement from MMO's since the way early days of the genre. The downtime in EQ allowed for that, as well as the non button mashing play style.. Less button mashing = more time to work out strategy + pulling/ shoot the shit with your group. Button mashing has yet to provide any real play variety/purpose.
The current world systems in most games are killing it at the moment. Areas are set up like boxes that serve one purpose, or set path that you will follow. I want to explore and not be told how to complete every objective in my quest journal. Bring back old world style lore, areas with seemingly no purpose. Games like EQ and some others really gave you the feeling that you could be in another place.
Don't get me wrong some advancements have been great in the MMO world, but rethinking some of what seems old-school could provide the heart that a lot of games lack now.
It seems the majority of people these days only care about fighting and getting phat loot. There are so many other things you can do in a MMO if they just put the features there. IMO I think a MMO should be like a virtual world, yes there should be combat, but you should also have other things. I like to explore and socialize. I really enjoyed the music system in LOTRO, and their Pipe Smoke system, different types of pipeweed made different smoke shapes. If a MMO had 1-6 at the start and there were a lot of people roleplaying I could see my self playing that game for a long time. FFXI was my first love it wasn't my first mmo though. But it had a lot of things I miss, mostly grouping but there was a lot of socializing in that game, be it with people in your party, linkshell or just some random people you met in a town. It seems like everyone now just wants to solo and get stuff done as fast as possible to get to max level. I sure hope FFXIV brings back that grouping socializing that I've missed for a long time now.
I agree with this. I could really enjoy an mmo that doesn't focus on combat at the moment. It needs it in there but I would love to be able to focus on other aspects of a game without feeling like I'm missing out. I, too, loved the music system and other roleplay features in LotRO, but that game also quickly became obsessed with gear and raiding (I actually preferred it before they added Helegrod and the Rift).
As for FFXI, I don't think I'll ever forget the community in that game. Never before and never since have I been able to just stop and have a conversation with random passers by in a town. The amount of time I would waste away just chatting in Jeuno.
Tutorial - It's actually hard for me to judge these now as I'm an experienced MMOer.
Malleable World - Have to give it to Eve, SWG, ATITD and Horizons/Istaria - Horizons/Istaria was amazing in the beginning - crafters had to work together with adventurers to build up things to open new stuff. For example, opening up the mines unlocked a race, solving a riddle unlocked another race, building bridges allowed you to discover new lands, that kind of thing - problem they had was that it got out of hand for the developers because each server was at a different stage - then becomes very hard to update anything. Would work great on a 'one server' system. I also believe that SWG, ATITD and Horizons/Istaria have something lots of games are missing - construction - actually placing structures where everyone can see them, even if ugly, adds a 'living' element to the world.
Crafting - All of the games I listed above also have great crafting systems. Crafter skill level is considered in the results. I don't care for mini games when I'm crafting - instead give me a complex system that gives me a chance to make unique items. Improving my own gear while important is not why I craft - heck I don't even care if I make anything useful in the game - let me just make 'social' stuff, but let it have my own stamp on it (and I don't mean my name).
Grouping - It would be nice if devs would keep a few things in mind. Group content that is integral to the game becomes very hard to do as the game ages. Witness LOTRO adding a solo option to all the group Book quests. The other big thing to keep in mind is to break it up somehow into smaller sessions - it's really hard to keep a group together for more than a couple of hours. More games should also include cooperative events - like there's a food shortage and everyone is asked to donate food to the cause - adventurers go out and gather meat, crafters go out and cook, etc - This is where MMOs can shine by including other forms of social gaming/interactions.
Housing - Guess what got me to buy STO? For me the game is fun - but what made my purchase decision in the end was the Bridge - not much now, but I can at least see the possibilities. I've tried playing games without housing - I last to about level 20. This is probably due to starting out my MMO adventures with SWG.
Economy - Well the reason they become so homogenized really has to do with crafting not allowing for anything unique/original - if all the stuff is dropped or equivalent then nothing stands out.
Strictly Social - Bingo - this is the big one. Why neglect this? To my mind this includes costumes, dyeing, housing items, pets, emotes, and hobbies (I will kiss the feet of the dev who puts in haberdashery as a hobby).
I would add one more - Community - It's more than the forums - let the GMs be seen in game - not just magically appear to fix a problem and then poof - have them interact with folks. Add in more short events, nothing earth shattering, but maybe the Goddess of Earth visits a city and hands out a few short term buffs - someone who doesn't walk on a programmed path or speak the same stuff over and over again. Just because MMOs are persistent that doesn't mean we want them set in stone and never changing - new content takes a while - give us some surprises while we wait.
as far as point 6 goes, I can't say anyone has done it yet though a few are planning to at last attempt to provide an illusion of that, beyond one or two limited events in a tiny handful of games little to no changes have occured in games as a result of the players (such as zones radically changing in design, art or purpose due to storyline / in game interaction changes)
Eve has got a not quite complete system for this.
There are the massive player controlled areas where you can build empires destroy them lots of battles etc. However the tools to build your empire are not complete yet, the recent dominion upgrade lets you improve industry as well. However it still feels like we are living off the space rather than owning it until a few more things are added.
Simpler system is the factional warfare system where people battle on behalf of an NPC faction to take space. less maleable but it's shown some interesting things such as when one side effectively won by taking over all their oponents space. This victory was worked into the storyline by ccp which I thought was a rather nice touch, also gave all the winning side a trophy rewarding their victory.
#1 - Tutorial My biggest pet peeve is when the tutorial is separate to the main world. When I start the game - I want to START the game. The tutorial should wrap around me, not be stuck in the middle of it. #2 - Malleable world I'd just be happy to see the seasons change. Did Ryzom do that, or did I imagine it? #3 - Crafting Most importantly, I'd like the quality of items to depend on the skill of the crafter and not what level items they bring in. For example, a level 1 crafter can take wolf skin (from a low level wolf) and create a poor jacket. A level 50 crafter can take that same wolf skin and create an amazing jacket that would be good enough to wear for a level 50. For that to work there has to actual skill in crafting the items and not just dinging level 50. This would also mean there's always a flow of money back into lower levels and less trash lying around. #4 - Grouping I played MMOs for a couple of years before I ever got into a group. The reason being that I was scared I'd look like I didn't know what I was doing. I think MMOs could do with a (skippable) interactive tutorial into groups that explains what a tank is, how a healer should contribute, how to play a melee DPS class etc. - and most importantly, how the group dynamics work in that particular game! #3 - Housing I want a game where the main cities have a finite number of (non-instanced) houses/apartments/etc and they can all be bought/sold/traded/rented. Allow people to get into real estate or become landlords to make there money. Allow people to build there own houses, but make it very expensive and something to do in the endgame other than raiding. #2 - Economy I think MMOs give out money far too easily. What I'd like to see is an MMO that gives better starter armour, that'll last longer, and make money much harder to acquire. #1 - Social Reet's Retreat in Anarchy Online - the best social hangout in any MMO. I was most disappointed that other MMOs didn't have places like this (AO was my first MMO).
You had me until Housing.
If something like this were implemented, what you would see is every property bought up by the uber-rich and kept permanently out of the hands of all but the other uber-rich. Many players of MMOs (WoW community, I'm looking at you) tend to want to pull the ladder up behind them after they've climbed it, and this would provide them an excellent opportunity to do just that. Player housing is certainly a big draw for me, but if I come to a game with that being a lure, only to find out that it's not available until end-game some months down the road, it's no longer a draw and it puts me one step closer to tipping out the door.
Economies in MMOs are notoriously poorly designed, so what would likely happen is even once you've reached end-game, jumped through all the stupid hoops to qualify for a place of your own, you'll need to purchase it from some self-styled land baron who will charge you more money than you've seen yet in your playing career in that world. Why? Because they set their prices towards the other uber-rich because that's where the money can be made. I've see the same mechanic at work in DDO just recently while trying to upgrade my dinky little short sword to something with a bit more bite. I have about 13000 gold accumulated so far and there are piddly little +2 Daggers selling for 20,000+ gold. So who is expected to buy them? Alts of other established players, because by the time you have the money for it if you're getting started, you'll no longer want it. Instead, you'll be matching your 20,000g bank account against weapons selling in the 50,000 to 100,000 range. Basically, the economy is driven by the very rich for the benefit of the very rich.
Sorry, that sounds like a Marxist rant when it really wasn't intended to be.
The point is, the fun features of the game should be accessible to everyone, not just the chosen few leering down from their mountains of shiny coin. I mean, the first dwelling you get shouldn't be fantastical mansion made of marble and silver, but even the lowliest of paupers should have a hovel to call their own. And generally, that would be enough to satisfy for a while.
As far as purely social pursuits go, having a central hangout where people can just sort of ... hang out, wouldn't much do it for me. Sitting around chatting, listening to awful pseudo-anachronistic banter and juvenile apemen comparing their e-peens, is not something that would attract me. However, if there was something to do, even some sort of competition, where everyone had an equal chance of succeeding regardless of how long you've been playing the game, now that might draw me in. Rewards wouldn't have anything to do with altering gameplay, but would be for bragging rights or cosmetic changes. To spice it up, create random teams so that people can get together purely for fun, without the disincentive of failure having any meaningful impact. If you want new players to embrace the community, provide some sort of direction on doing just that rather than providing little more than a glorified chat zone and expecting it to be enough. The internet is rampant with chat rooms. I don't need my *game* to provide yet another one.
I'm not really as bitter as I sound, but these are particular pet peeves of mine that developers have routinely seemed incapable of addressing.
Great article - Some of my additional points are (Based on my only playing WoW) and REAL life (Yes - I have one)
TUTORIAL - WoW on their Flying tutorial introduces it to Noobs at about Level 10 - DUMB!!!
By that time anyone who has been doing anything in the game - actually PLAYING the game - instead of having some high level escort them around and killing everything for them would have found out all about flying on their own. This is just one of many stupid player things that should have just been put into a WRITTEN tutorial that the players could reference. Actually I suppose it really is if anyone would bother to read the material on the world of WoW on their website.
CRAFTING - It seems to me that it takes FAR too long to get to the point where a crafter can make much of anything useful or profitable. That coupled with the overly inflated prices for materials in the Auction House (unless the player has a bunch of scavenging alts to obtain materials) makes crafting a dubious choice for lower level troops.
GATHERING however is a good way for low level characters to gain money and supply crafters. I really think that Gathering should be allowed as another category similar to the Cooking/ Fishing/First Adi category - and separate from Crafting.
While I am on the subject of the Auction House - it seems that there are some with lots of Gold who have a morbid desire to UNDERCUT the price of some items just to keep the low level troops from making money (the names become familiar soon enough). I have some higher level troops who just LOVE this type - they buy up all the cheap stuff they put on the market and then when they leave they sell at the SANE going price and make money off the other persons totally anal attitude - LOL.
WEAPONS - It would appear that the WoW designers have LITTLE OR NO knowledge of handling of REAL weapons. I am involved with groups in the Renaissance Faires that use "live steel" - REAL steel swords, pikes, axes and the like - and also real staves. Blood is frequently drawn in these contests - although with all of the practices before shows to ELIMINATE accidents no one has died - YET! (Fingers crossed) WOW Weapon speeds are rediculous! I would like to see some REALISM in the use of weapons. YEAH - I know, this is a fantasy world.
Staves have a slow rating in WOW - but anyone who has actually used them in a combat situation or has taken Martial Arts knows that they are VERY fast.
What is this WOW obsession with HEAVY, SLOW two-handed weapons. Anyone doing "Live Steel: combat knows that heavy Two-handed weapons are usually ONLY wielded by Very Big troops in HEAVY armor. EVERYONE else uses MUCH FASTER one handed weapons - a weapon and a shield OR two single handed weapons. And the users of TWO weapons rapidly become almost as efficient with the "Off" hand as they do with the "Main" hand. I think ALL classes that elect to adopt Dual wield should have this adjustment
Another WoW stupidity - Why have weapons labeled "MAIN HAND" at all? If a player can only use ONE weapon it MUST be the main hand - now with the last Rogue revision with them coming out of the barn with dual wield it really limits the choice of weapons for the off hand. BLIZZARD - ARE YOU LISTENING? Eliminate the "Main Hand" Requirement for one handed weapons.
Another place that the WOW designers apparently have ABSOLUTELY NO expertise is in Bows. I have been an Archer since I was 14 years old ( I just had my 82nd birthday - and still shoot in competition) so I think I am competent to comment on the subject. A right handed shooter ALWAYS shoots with the arrow on the LEFT side of the bow - unless he/she is shooting with an oriental thumb-ring or a Japanese shooting glove that has a hook built into the thumb. In both of these cases the Fingers are placed OVER the thumb until release. And the "shooting from the hip" with the bow flat in front may look good on the toons but it would get a REAL person killed in real life.
This post is in regards to his comments about grouping which I agree with 100%. For some odd reason in the older games like DAOC random grouping happened quite often and it helped build community, everyone began to know everyone. Nowadays you barely know your own guild.
#7 - Tutorial. No complaints with most tutorials. They're either very WoWesque or not. Tutorial zone - Age of Conan did a great job in Tortuga.
#6 - Malleable world. I do like WoW's with the changes that occur in Icecrown, etc., as you progress it changes. I would love to see more weather changes - extreme stuff randomly - hurricane, lightening, invasion of cockroaches - things that make it more real. Events that could mess stuff up a bit or cause injury, etc. - and not planned as in "oh its the 11 earthquake on Tuesday! Real day/night and NOT on a 24 hour clock. Love it in EQ2 where it get damn dark if you don't turn up your gamma. Gates are shut in areas, etc.
#5 - Crafting. Love this in a game, but the stuff should be useful from the beginning. Not grind thru 20 pairs of gloves or 5 bad tables that you're just vendor. The crafted items - housing, gear, food should have MORE value than random drops. That runs an economy. Gathering professions should be available to all that want to do them. What do you mean I can pick flowers but can't cut a tree down or mine that vein of gold? Some interdependencies on crafted items too, not everything but if I'm a carpenter, I might need iron whatevers from the smithy.
How about adding in farming (LoTRO type) grow some of the ingredients. Or people want mounts - a tamer/wrangler that goes out and gets them with his skill. Same for hunter/ranger pets or companion animals.
#4 - Grouping - WoW's recent change to the LFG has made that much easier. Cross server makes that much better, unfortunately, its only instanced (or in PvP bgs). Grouping in world quest lines can be difficult to do if you're not in a guild with others at your level or play at odd hours. Especially epic lines that take more than a few hours to complete.
#3 - Housing. That is one of the fun things in games! I love EQ2's and being able to go in others houses to see how they've decorated. That and being able to sell from you house (save the broker fees), especially as you level is fun. Gets you out in the town, etc. Agree with the poster that mentioned all the books that are actually readable. Things people can interact with in your house - food that can be eaten, lights on/off (EQ2 has great housing imho!).
I'm not sure how the guild housing has effected this in EQ2 now. Love the look of the guild houses - bloody castles - but are the streets & towns empty?
#2 - Economy. Personal prefer a broker to AH. Buy directly and save your coin or not. Have some of the vendors able to sell the things people sell to them. Either crafted or drops. Money shouldn't be super easy to get but it shouldn't be such a chore that it takes away from game play.
# 1 - Social. Most of the chat channels, grouping, guilds, etc., are there in most games. I don't know how you can force people to be social. Smaller events - music or parties or random city attacks that need to be defended against. Fun without having to be a major two week event.
I know that a lot of people haven't even heard of it, as it's not in the states (And may still not be anytime soon), but I have been playing a game in particular that has a lot of these things.
Monster Hunter Frontier. Anyone who has played Freedom Unite for the PSP probably wouldn't think that it would half half of these things, but it does.
7) It has a very nice tutorial, if you can understand the language the game is in (Of course most people cannot that are reading these forums). Teaches you everything you need to know about the town interface, and when you are on any tutorial missions, you have an NPC constantly talking to you telling you about the game, so you can figure it all out, and even assists you in your first missions.
6) Granted, the world isn't exactly changed by the player's actions, his choices on what to do changes the area in which you are playing. Night and Day even make a large influence, and even some of the monsters you are sent out to fight make a huge difference, and change the entire view of the environment.
5) Anyone who has ever played Monster Hunter at all knows that the entire game is crafting. You kill monsters, get materials, and can make weapons, armors, and items out of it. You can make anything you want if you have what you need.
4) Grouping makes the utmost difference in Frontier. Since it is completely online, anyone and everyone can end up joining your group. Of course it is still 4 people, as that's the foundation of the series, but if you have the wrong weapons, or wrong people in your group, you will fail.
3) Frontier has an entire customizable house system. You can even get rare rewards not found anywhere else if you make your house right, and choose to get it reviewed. Based on what items you put in compared to others, you get a score, and that score results in certain rewards. Some of the best gems to upgrade armor are found from this system.
2) They have actually added monsters in Frontier that require you to interact with your fellow players to get the job done, or at least have a game plan. Without working together, you can fail because of how the fight has to be done.
1) Unfortunately, I cannot comment on this aspect, as I am not yet a master of the Japanese language. I can interact enough to get around, but I cannot be social yet =(. I know there are people who are online all day and never even play, just chat up a storm, but I am not one of them. =P
Like I said though, this is a Japanese game, not American yet. As such, most people have never heard of it, but it has everything on this list, and is one of my favorite games for the last 3 months since I started playing it. It's about having fun, because you can. You can grind if you want to, but usually there's no reason to. It's Monster Hunter, anyone who has played it extensively knows that Monster Hunter is extremely fun when taken the right way.
Originally posted by Shelby13 SWG Social.... Entertainers.. you can play Galaxies and never shoot a single creature to level up as an Entertainer. Entertainers do provide buffs to other characters but also are the 'tools' use for character appearance changes (hairstyles, height, age). Ironically.. the game that I believe is the best example of all the above is Star Wars Galaxies. SWG Housing.. for a combat game, is outstanding. There are some breathtaking player-created houses in Galaxies. There is a wide variety of housing (mostly crafted, see below) SWG Crafting.. in-depth, functional, a complete system with 3 classes of its own. Crafted items are desired, purchased and add depth to the game (clothing & armor is almost exclusively crafted). Crafting is a cornerstone of Galaxies... not an afterthought. The sad thing is.. players are simply too hung up on the whole Next Generation Enhancement (NGE) 'betrayal' and their anger about the changes to the combat-based classes that they abandoned this otherwise well-rounded game. Space, Ground, Crafting, Housing, Entertainment, Chronicals, Collections, Herioc Instances, Faction Combat, Bounty Hunting... all tied together in a 6 year old MMO. If SWG was launched as it is today, without the history 'baggage', and a few visual upgrades (and a few less fairy wings)... I bet the hype-meter would be pretty high overall. Galaxies is not new, its not perfect, its not all-about-Jedi... but it certainly has a wide array of systems and player interests that it still, to this day, despite all the nay-sayers and dooms-day predictions, is fun to play. Too bad soo many of us are missing out. I'd encourage you all to take a 2nd look at the game, put your blinders on, IGNORE the forums and really explore what Galaxies has to offer.
I agree with you in many ways i think SWG does these things the best.
Interesting article, I was wondering how much you got form UO & SWG Pre-CU vets
Before anything else there was too much griefiing in UO, for the casual gamer, and SWG was bit tedious, especially grinding crafting professions and managing all the resources gathering, more like an unpaid second work.
As may other (older?) players I'm eager to see an mmoRPG that promotes grouping, socialization, has a deep crafting system with housing and non combat professions along the side.
The evolving environments would be a nice topping but they aren't mandatory.
To promote socialization just remove levels in game, having levels push everyone to rush to end level then shout loudly: there's no end content!
Another thing is important is to make combat fun and so challenging. Make death counts, from huge (combat) time sinks to objects / xp loss.
As for PvP which is seriously lacking in MMO, there is a need to make it more challenging, starting by hiding the opponents health bars to maybe hide their level.
Finally there is a major feature too often forgotten: the UI. You have too many (not so bad) games hindered by poor UI killing the fun and the immersion.
Although it seems the suits thinks (and might be right) that enhanced diablo 2 MMO sells, as does WoW.
Very good article! The only one I disagreed with is the one I think hurts more mmos than it helps and that's housing. While giving someone a small plot of land and some things to do with it definitely help to draw that player into that world, it hurts the community.
I would respectfully disagree. SWG had housing and they overcame the problems you raised. Based on the way you moved around the game and the economy (wow, they connected them!). With the transport system built into the game, player housing spontaneously grew up close to cities (well, as close as you could get) because people wanted them accessible to the population as crafters sold their wares out of houses.
SWG further resolved some of these issues with player cities. Again, cities concentrated houses rather than having them scattered across the planet. Cities provided most of the advantages of NPC cities but not all but they primarily provided an alternative when the real estate outside cites was too full support more houses.
All I'm pointing out is that housing can be a huge, positive draw to a game and it’s economy if implemented with careful thought and consideration to its role in a game. The housing in SWG actually created more traffic in the major cities than before it was implemented so keep an open mind and consider that there may be good a bad ways to implement any feature in a game, including ones that mostly provide atmosphere a game.
Ok, so I'm gonna ask a question here, and I'm not trolling, I really wanna know.
What is housing good for?
I've been playing MMOs for almost a decade now, and none of them had player housing. The closest thing I've seen was Warhammer's guild area that was in-accessible unless you were in a guild.
But I have never wished I had a house, or a room or whatever. So I don't get why people want housing so much. If anything, it seems to me like housing would hurt the game. You'd have less people in the city, less people PvPing, just... less people.
So, what's the attraction there?
I remember once me and some friends were saying it would be fun if our guild could own a guild-hall of sorts that was instanced, would be accessible only to guild-members, could issue temporary invites to non-guildies, and had a dueling area. Then we can make an invite-only event and advertise it for a certain day and time, where we'd run a dueling tournament. And also gamble on the winners and whatnot. This sounds like fun. But this is also PvP (the dueling part), and it has interactions with other player in an in-game atmosphere. Not just sitting around drinking tea and talking about our day.
So would a feature like this be considered good by those of you that want player-housing? Or is player housing in your minds only a personal private space that you can fully customize?
(1) basic hello world walk and talk (2) unobtrusive hints about how to find and get started with the various systems / minigames / recent patches (3) a sort of playable personality test that helps you find systems you might like and perhaps define your character's background/personality (4) walkthrough of the mythology/history of the game ( I find that games tend to fail to realize that their accumulated history is actually a *huge* selling point if they could harness it )
Seasons, event cycles, player-influenced points. Even a simple thing like a statue that shows a random person from the last group to complete a rare or epic quest adds a huge amount of depth. Part of it is being able to leave a mark, part of it is not getting bored when making new characters. I find it mind-boggling how little randomization most MMOs have - did MMO designers not play nethack in their youth?
My personal measure of a fantasy game world is whether I can play a crafter with very limited combat skills and still feel like I'm having a fulfilling experience.
Grouping is hard - this depends a lot on the personality types of the players and what they are looking for. I've enjoyed playing in a shared world, but when it comes right down to it I'm a loner - I like crossing paths with people, doing little things to help, sharing accidental adventures, but not "grouping" or guilding.
I see housing as a corner case of the more general idea of crafting + malleable world. It's just a corner of the world that you have total control over.
The most important thing to remember is that a free market rewards efficiency, not fun. If people are trying to have fun, the game's economy can easily become their enemy.
As a hobby I try to design MMO concepts that deal with that stuff. And y'know it's not that hard to flesh it out. Sometimes I think alot of developers just sit down with an engine and slap a map together, then say "well, they'll buy this" so they put it in, "They'll buy this" and put it in, "We don't really need to do any thing new or try anything out of our reach" then they release it.
It's almost as if they are purposely avoiding giving players what they truly want.... It's not about gaming anymore, It's to much about money.
Been playing since UO and I still just don't get all the clamoring for housing. It's either an open world eye sore(UO, AC1, SWG) or a useless instance(AO, EQ2, LOTRO).
If they're done right, they pull people away from the major towns and former hubs of activity become ghost towns.
If they're done wrong, everyone buys one, then they are left to languish, using valuable DB space serving as nothing more than decorative storage.
I guess I just don't get it.
Maybe someday some developer will create the perfect housing solution in MMO's and the light bulb will come on for me.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Interesting article, I was wondering how much you got form UO & SWG Pre-CU vets
Before anything else there was too much griefiing in UO, for the casual gamer, and SWG was bit tedious, especially grinding crafting professions and managing all the resources gathering, more like an unpaid second work.
i respectfully disagree
i found swg's crafting system very easy to get used to ounce you put in 1 or 2 hrs of work to figure it out
it even got fun
swg had one of the greatest crafting systems out there if not the greatest witch i believe it was and most people i talk to who like crafting tend to agree
just because you dont like crafting doesn't mean people who do like crafting didnt like swg's crafting system
iv playd many mmo's in my time and none of the crafting systems compare to swg's
as for UO never played it my self but i hear it was open pvp so
if that being the case you couldn't be more right almost all open pvp games have way too much grieffing
Ok, so I'm gonna ask a question here, and I'm not trolling, I really wanna know. What is housing good for?
1st off i apologize if you didnt like swg as im going to use it as a prime example hear :P as they were the closest to geting it right
2nd thing to have a working housing system you have to have really large worlds with lots of open space like swg had
well it gives you a place of storage as well as a place to show off if the game does decorating right and gives a graphic to all the loot you can pick up
like in swg
and it lets the player have some creativity
and it can have other functions too
in swg you could build city's
and you could sell stuff from you house via vender witch was your own npc you higher to sell your wares
it could also serve as a meeting place i used my large house as the town crafting hub
or a place to hold an in game party
housing could serve many functions if done correctly
it also gives the player a sense of accomplishment as well as a sense of actual ownership of part of there game world
and it gives crafters a sense of the ability to actually influence a change in the game world
with a sort of "i built that" factor
what i have not seen done correctly concerning housing is upkeep
what they should do is ounce it goes derelict and with out payments
the house/building should disappear in 1-3 weeks after maintenance runs out
and there should be a max of 1-3 months maintenance you can pay on a house at any given time so that it will eventually disappear ounce neglected
while i love swg's housing and most players took advantage of it they did not do this and ended up with people who purposely built there full allotment of housing and paid years worth of maintenance on them and left them derelict
The next MMO release will contain some or all of these features :
Crafting
Housing
Levelling
Gear
Experience
Quests
Talents/Skills
Dungeon crawling
What the next MMORPG should contain is none of the above. The entire MMO industry has been reskinning Everquest for too many years and it will continue doing so until one game designer can make a leap of imagination to create a brand new original game.
Everquest is a great game but it is time to move on.
Originally posted by Muppetier I would probably take exactly the opposite view. The next MMO release will contain some or all of these features : Crafting Housing Levelling Gear Experience Quests Talents/Skills Dungeon crawling What the next MMORPG should contain is none of the above. The entire MMO industry has been reskinning Everquest for too many years and it will continue doing so until one game designer can make a leap of imagination to create a brand new original game. Everquest is a great game but it is time to move on.
I wouldn't see much of a game if you remove all of the above there. Levels AND Talents/Skills? The game would just be pure role-playing without any quantitative measuring stick to gauge any sort of character progression. A type of game without any listed above will be very niche and arguably too niche to even become self-sustainable (obviously based off speculation).
I think what the article lends itself to overall as a message is important and the major shortfall of this genre (despite how much I really do love the genre). The emphasis on combat and various forms of progression is inherent in most if not all of the most recent games. It's time for developers to look at these games from a more social angle and start catering to that end of the spectrum as well.
These MMORPG's currently seem to be played for the most part as big multiplayer single player games and once the content is exhausted (or the player is), they'll move on to the next MMORPG to rinse and repeat. That's my basic impression at least since few MMORPG's are being built with more emphasis for the long-term.
"I wouldn't see much of a game if you remove all of the above there. Levels AND Talents/Skills? The game would just be pure role-playing without any quantitative measuring stick to gauge any sort of character progression. A type of game without any listed above will be very niche and arguably too niche to even become self-sustainable (obviously based off speculation)."
Chess. (for example)
Has none of the above but is not a niche game. Now I know Chess is not an MMO but the leap of imagination that is required is to come up with an MMO that is NOT everquest.
Comments
very well said. yes, sadly most mmos today focus on that level up path and barely even focus on the story driving it let alone anything else. hell, several of the the most recent mmo games didnt even get the core systems down come launch time. it seems like its getting to be all about box sales with new mmos only to have the game limp along to milk the sad few who actually cling on with their subscription.
i agree
swg did exemplify what this post was about
especially crafting iv never seen a better crafting system then swg's
pre-nge swg was and sadly still is the ideal game for me
and we will probably never see its like again
the thing that pissed me off about the NGE was one particular part of the update
its that they took our ability to dictate who our character was in the swg univers and stuck us in "Iconic" cookie cutter classes like in every other MMO out there
thats what pissed me off most about the NGE the rest of what i didnt like i could of lived with
and its something there "expertese system" could never hope to replace
and they took some features i liked out like CH but again i could of lived with that part
and i saw they replaced ch in a recent revisit to the game
Games certainly need to let the community drive the market/economy.
EQ early on didn't have the easy tools to make selling fast or convenient. But player to player interaction made it. It took play time, allowed for socialization, and created work for reward. Finding that new helm at a good price meant face to face haggle sessions. I loved hanging out in the EC tunnel.
The other thing games need is a good world as the article mentions, and methods to put the social back in game. The lack of that is one reason I've been on the longest retirement from MMO's since the way early days of the genre. The downtime in EQ allowed for that, as well as the non button mashing play style.. Less button mashing = more time to work out strategy + pulling/ shoot the shit with your group. Button mashing has yet to provide any real play variety/purpose.
The current world systems in most games are killing it at the moment. Areas are set up like boxes that serve one purpose, or set path that you will follow. I want to explore and not be told how to complete every objective in my quest journal. Bring back old world style lore, areas with seemingly no purpose. Games like EQ and some others really gave you the feeling that you could be in another place.
Don't get me wrong some advancements have been great in the MMO world, but rethinking some of what seems old-school could provide the heart that a lot of games lack now.
I agree with this. I could really enjoy an mmo that doesn't focus on combat at the moment. It needs it in there but I would love to be able to focus on other aspects of a game without feeling like I'm missing out. I, too, loved the music system and other roleplay features in LotRO, but that game also quickly became obsessed with gear and raiding (I actually preferred it before they added Helegrod and the Rift).
As for FFXI, I don't think I'll ever forget the community in that game. Never before and never since have I been able to just stop and have a conversation with random passers by in a town. The amount of time I would waste away just chatting in Jeuno.
Tutorial - It's actually hard for me to judge these now as I'm an experienced MMOer.
Malleable World - Have to give it to Eve, SWG, ATITD and Horizons/Istaria - Horizons/Istaria was amazing in the beginning - crafters had to work together with adventurers to build up things to open new stuff. For example, opening up the mines unlocked a race, solving a riddle unlocked another race, building bridges allowed you to discover new lands, that kind of thing - problem they had was that it got out of hand for the developers because each server was at a different stage - then becomes very hard to update anything. Would work great on a 'one server' system. I also believe that SWG, ATITD and Horizons/Istaria have something lots of games are missing - construction - actually placing structures where everyone can see them, even if ugly, adds a 'living' element to the world.
Crafting - All of the games I listed above also have great crafting systems. Crafter skill level is considered in the results. I don't care for mini games when I'm crafting - instead give me a complex system that gives me a chance to make unique items. Improving my own gear while important is not why I craft - heck I don't even care if I make anything useful in the game - let me just make 'social' stuff, but let it have my own stamp on it (and I don't mean my name).
Grouping - It would be nice if devs would keep a few things in mind. Group content that is integral to the game becomes very hard to do as the game ages. Witness LOTRO adding a solo option to all the group Book quests. The other big thing to keep in mind is to break it up somehow into smaller sessions - it's really hard to keep a group together for more than a couple of hours. More games should also include cooperative events - like there's a food shortage and everyone is asked to donate food to the cause - adventurers go out and gather meat, crafters go out and cook, etc - This is where MMOs can shine by including other forms of social gaming/interactions.
Housing - Guess what got me to buy STO? For me the game is fun - but what made my purchase decision in the end was the Bridge - not much now, but I can at least see the possibilities. I've tried playing games without housing - I last to about level 20. This is probably due to starting out my MMO adventures with SWG.
Economy - Well the reason they become so homogenized really has to do with crafting not allowing for anything unique/original - if all the stuff is dropped or equivalent then nothing stands out.
Strictly Social - Bingo - this is the big one. Why neglect this? To my mind this includes costumes, dyeing, housing items, pets, emotes, and hobbies (I will kiss the feet of the dev who puts in haberdashery as a hobby).
I would add one more - Community - It's more than the forums - let the GMs be seen in game - not just magically appear to fix a problem and then poof - have them interact with folks. Add in more short events, nothing earth shattering, but maybe the Goddess of Earth visits a city and hands out a few short term buffs - someone who doesn't walk on a programmed path or speak the same stuff over and over again. Just because MMOs are persistent that doesn't mean we want them set in stone and never changing - new content takes a while - give us some surprises while we wait.
Eve has got a not quite complete system for this.
There are the massive player controlled areas where you can build empires destroy them lots of battles etc. However the tools to build your empire are not complete yet, the recent dominion upgrade lets you improve industry as well. However it still feels like we are living off the space rather than owning it until a few more things are added.
Simpler system is the factional warfare system where people battle on behalf of an NPC faction to take space. less maleable but it's shown some interesting things such as when one side effectively won by taking over all their oponents space. This victory was worked into the storyline by ccp which I thought was a rather nice touch, also gave all the winning side a trophy rewarding their victory.
Into the breach meatbags
You had me until Housing.
If something like this were implemented, what you would see is every property bought up by the uber-rich and kept permanently out of the hands of all but the other uber-rich. Many players of MMOs (WoW community, I'm looking at you) tend to want to pull the ladder up behind them after they've climbed it, and this would provide them an excellent opportunity to do just that. Player housing is certainly a big draw for me, but if I come to a game with that being a lure, only to find out that it's not available until end-game some months down the road, it's no longer a draw and it puts me one step closer to tipping out the door.
Economies in MMOs are notoriously poorly designed, so what would likely happen is even once you've reached end-game, jumped through all the stupid hoops to qualify for a place of your own, you'll need to purchase it from some self-styled land baron who will charge you more money than you've seen yet in your playing career in that world. Why? Because they set their prices towards the other uber-rich because that's where the money can be made. I've see the same mechanic at work in DDO just recently while trying to upgrade my dinky little short sword to something with a bit more bite. I have about 13000 gold accumulated so far and there are piddly little +2 Daggers selling for 20,000+ gold. So who is expected to buy them? Alts of other established players, because by the time you have the money for it if you're getting started, you'll no longer want it. Instead, you'll be matching your 20,000g bank account against weapons selling in the 50,000 to 100,000 range. Basically, the economy is driven by the very rich for the benefit of the very rich.
Sorry, that sounds like a Marxist rant when it really wasn't intended to be.
The point is, the fun features of the game should be accessible to everyone, not just the chosen few leering down from their mountains of shiny coin. I mean, the first dwelling you get shouldn't be fantastical mansion made of marble and silver, but even the lowliest of paupers should have a hovel to call their own. And generally, that would be enough to satisfy for a while.
As far as purely social pursuits go, having a central hangout where people can just sort of ... hang out, wouldn't much do it for me. Sitting around chatting, listening to awful pseudo-anachronistic banter and juvenile apemen comparing their e-peens, is not something that would attract me. However, if there was something to do, even some sort of competition, where everyone had an equal chance of succeeding regardless of how long you've been playing the game, now that might draw me in. Rewards wouldn't have anything to do with altering gameplay, but would be for bragging rights or cosmetic changes. To spice it up, create random teams so that people can get together purely for fun, without the disincentive of failure having any meaningful impact. If you want new players to embrace the community, provide some sort of direction on doing just that rather than providing little more than a glorified chat zone and expecting it to be enough. The internet is rampant with chat rooms. I don't need my *game* to provide yet another one.
I'm not really as bitter as I sound, but these are particular pet peeves of mine that developers have routinely seemed incapable of addressing.
Great article - Some of my additional points are (Based on my only playing WoW) and REAL life (Yes - I have one)
TUTORIAL - WoW on their Flying tutorial introduces it to Noobs at about Level 10 - DUMB!!!
By that time anyone who has been doing anything in the game - actually PLAYING the game - instead of having some high level escort them around and killing everything for them would have found out all about flying on their own. This is just one of many stupid player things that should have just been put into a WRITTEN tutorial that the players could reference. Actually I suppose it really is if anyone would bother to read the material on the world of WoW on their website.
CRAFTING - It seems to me that it takes FAR too long to get to the point where a crafter can make much of anything useful or profitable. That coupled with the overly inflated prices for materials in the Auction House (unless the player has a bunch of scavenging alts to obtain materials) makes crafting a dubious choice for lower level troops.
GATHERING however is a good way for low level characters to gain money and supply crafters. I really think that Gathering should be allowed as another category similar to the Cooking/ Fishing/First Adi category - and separate from Crafting.
While I am on the subject of the Auction House - it seems that there are some with lots of Gold who have a morbid desire to UNDERCUT the price of some items just to keep the low level troops from making money (the names become familiar soon enough). I have some higher level troops who just LOVE this type - they buy up all the cheap stuff they put on the market and then when they leave they sell at the SANE going price and make money off the other persons totally anal attitude - LOL.
WEAPONS - It would appear that the WoW designers have LITTLE OR NO knowledge of handling of REAL weapons. I am involved with groups in the Renaissance Faires that use "live steel" - REAL steel swords, pikes, axes and the like - and also real staves. Blood is frequently drawn in these contests - although with all of the practices before shows to ELIMINATE accidents no one has died - YET! (Fingers crossed) WOW Weapon speeds are rediculous! I would like to see some REALISM in the use of weapons. YEAH - I know, this is a fantasy world.
Staves have a slow rating in WOW - but anyone who has actually used them in a combat situation or has taken Martial Arts knows that they are VERY fast.
What is this WOW obsession with HEAVY, SLOW two-handed weapons. Anyone doing "Live Steel: combat knows that heavy Two-handed weapons are usually ONLY wielded by Very Big troops in HEAVY armor. EVERYONE else uses MUCH FASTER one handed weapons - a weapon and a shield OR two single handed weapons. And the users of TWO weapons rapidly become almost as efficient with the "Off" hand as they do with the "Main" hand. I think ALL classes that elect to adopt Dual wield should have this adjustment
Another WoW stupidity - Why have weapons labeled "MAIN HAND" at all? If a player can only use ONE weapon it MUST be the main hand - now with the last Rogue revision with them coming out of the barn with dual wield it really limits the choice of weapons for the off hand. BLIZZARD - ARE YOU LISTENING? Eliminate the "Main Hand" Requirement for one handed weapons.
Another place that the WOW designers apparently have ABSOLUTELY NO expertise is in Bows. I have been an Archer since I was 14 years old ( I just had my 82nd birthday - and still shoot in competition) so I think I am competent to comment on the subject. A right handed shooter ALWAYS shoots with the arrow on the LEFT side of the bow - unless he/she is shooting with an oriental thumb-ring or a Japanese shooting glove that has a hook built into the thumb. In both of these cases the Fingers are placed OVER the thumb until release. And the "shooting from the hip" with the bow flat in front may look good on the toons but it would get a REAL person killed in real life.
This post is in regards to his comments about grouping which I agree with 100%. For some odd reason in the older games like DAOC random grouping happened quite often and it helped build community, everyone began to know everyone. Nowadays you barely know your own guild.
#7 - Tutorial. No complaints with most tutorials. They're either very WoWesque or not. Tutorial zone - Age of Conan did a great job in Tortuga.
#6 - Malleable world. I do like WoW's with the changes that occur in Icecrown, etc., as you progress it changes. I would love to see more weather changes - extreme stuff randomly - hurricane, lightening, invasion of cockroaches - things that make it more real. Events that could mess stuff up a bit or cause injury, etc. - and not planned as in "oh its the 11 earthquake on Tuesday! Real day/night and NOT on a 24 hour clock. Love it in EQ2 where it get damn dark if you don't turn up your gamma. Gates are shut in areas, etc.
#5 - Crafting. Love this in a game, but the stuff should be useful from the beginning. Not grind thru 20 pairs of gloves or 5 bad tables that you're just vendor. The crafted items - housing, gear, food should have MORE value than random drops. That runs an economy. Gathering professions should be available to all that want to do them. What do you mean I can pick flowers but can't cut a tree down or mine that vein of gold? Some interdependencies on crafted items too, not everything but if I'm a carpenter, I might need iron whatevers from the smithy.
How about adding in farming (LoTRO type) grow some of the ingredients. Or people want mounts - a tamer/wrangler that goes out and gets them with his skill. Same for hunter/ranger pets or companion animals.
#4 - Grouping - WoW's recent change to the LFG has made that much easier. Cross server makes that much better, unfortunately, its only instanced (or in PvP bgs). Grouping in world quest lines can be difficult to do if you're not in a guild with others at your level or play at odd hours. Especially epic lines that take more than a few hours to complete.
#3 - Housing. That is one of the fun things in games! I love EQ2's and being able to go in others houses to see how they've decorated. That and being able to sell from you house (save the broker fees), especially as you level is fun. Gets you out in the town, etc. Agree with the poster that mentioned all the books that are actually readable. Things people can interact with in your house - food that can be eaten, lights on/off (EQ2 has great housing imho!).
I'm not sure how the guild housing has effected this in EQ2 now. Love the look of the guild houses - bloody castles - but are the streets & towns empty?
#2 - Economy. Personal prefer a broker to AH. Buy directly and save your coin or not. Have some of the vendors able to sell the things people sell to them. Either crafted or drops. Money shouldn't be super easy to get but it shouldn't be such a chore that it takes away from game play.
# 1 - Social. Most of the chat channels, grouping, guilds, etc., are there in most games. I don't know how you can force people to be social. Smaller events - music or parties or random city attacks that need to be defended against. Fun without having to be a major two week event.
Good article!!
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
I know that a lot of people haven't even heard of it, as it's not in the states (And may still not be anytime soon), but I have been playing a game in particular that has a lot of these things.
Monster Hunter Frontier. Anyone who has played Freedom Unite for the PSP probably wouldn't think that it would half half of these things, but it does.
7) It has a very nice tutorial, if you can understand the language the game is in (Of course most people cannot that are reading these forums). Teaches you everything you need to know about the town interface, and when you are on any tutorial missions, you have an NPC constantly talking to you telling you about the game, so you can figure it all out, and even assists you in your first missions.
6) Granted, the world isn't exactly changed by the player's actions, his choices on what to do changes the area in which you are playing. Night and Day even make a large influence, and even some of the monsters you are sent out to fight make a huge difference, and change the entire view of the environment.
5) Anyone who has ever played Monster Hunter at all knows that the entire game is crafting. You kill monsters, get materials, and can make weapons, armors, and items out of it. You can make anything you want if you have what you need.
4) Grouping makes the utmost difference in Frontier. Since it is completely online, anyone and everyone can end up joining your group. Of course it is still 4 people, as that's the foundation of the series, but if you have the wrong weapons, or wrong people in your group, you will fail.
3) Frontier has an entire customizable house system. You can even get rare rewards not found anywhere else if you make your house right, and choose to get it reviewed. Based on what items you put in compared to others, you get a score, and that score results in certain rewards. Some of the best gems to upgrade armor are found from this system.
2) They have actually added monsters in Frontier that require you to interact with your fellow players to get the job done, or at least have a game plan. Without working together, you can fail because of how the fight has to be done.
1) Unfortunately, I cannot comment on this aspect, as I am not yet a master of the Japanese language. I can interact enough to get around, but I cannot be social yet =(. I know there are people who are online all day and never even play, just chat up a storm, but I am not one of them. =P
Like I said though, this is a Japanese game, not American yet. As such, most people have never heard of it, but it has everything on this list, and is one of my favorite games for the last 3 months since I started playing it. It's about having fun, because you can. You can grind if you want to, but usually there's no reason to. It's Monster Hunter, anyone who has played it extensively knows that Monster Hunter is extremely fun when taken the right way.
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This is but a brief parting.
Mallable world is most important to me.
I agree with you in many ways i think SWG does these things the best.
Interesting article, I was wondering how much you got form UO & SWG Pre-CU vets
Before anything else there was too much griefiing in UO, for the casual gamer, and SWG was bit tedious, especially grinding crafting professions and managing all the resources gathering, more like an unpaid second work.
As may other (older?) players I'm eager to see an mmoRPG that promotes grouping, socialization, has a deep crafting system with housing and non combat professions along the side.
The evolving environments would be a nice topping but they aren't mandatory.
To promote socialization just remove levels in game, having levels push everyone to rush to end level then shout loudly: there's no end content!
Another thing is important is to make combat fun and so challenging. Make death counts, from huge (combat) time sinks to objects / xp loss.
As for PvP which is seriously lacking in MMO, there is a need to make it more challenging, starting by hiding the opponents health bars to maybe hide their level.
Finally there is a major feature too often forgotten: the UI. You have too many (not so bad) games hindered by poor UI killing the fun and the immersion.
Although it seems the suits thinks (and might be right) that enhanced diablo 2 MMO sells, as does WoW.
Thanks for the article.
I would respectfully disagree. SWG had housing and they overcame the problems you raised. Based on the way you moved around the game and the economy (wow, they connected them!). With the transport system built into the game, player housing spontaneously grew up close to cities (well, as close as you could get) because people wanted them accessible to the population as crafters sold their wares out of houses.
SWG further resolved some of these issues with player cities. Again, cities concentrated houses rather than having them scattered across the planet. Cities provided most of the advantages of NPC cities but not all but they primarily provided an alternative when the real estate outside cites was too full support more houses.
All I'm pointing out is that housing can be a huge, positive draw to a game and it’s economy if implemented with careful thought and consideration to its role in a game. The housing in SWG actually created more traffic in the major cities than before it was implemented so keep an open mind and consider that there may be good a bad ways to implement any feature in a game, including ones that mostly provide atmosphere a game.
-=[ Gaidin ]=-
Ok, so I'm gonna ask a question here, and I'm not trolling, I really wanna know.
What is housing good for?
I've been playing MMOs for almost a decade now, and none of them had player housing. The closest thing I've seen was Warhammer's guild area that was in-accessible unless you were in a guild.
But I have never wished I had a house, or a room or whatever. So I don't get why people want housing so much. If anything, it seems to me like housing would hurt the game. You'd have less people in the city, less people PvPing, just... less people.
So, what's the attraction there?
I remember once me and some friends were saying it would be fun if our guild could own a guild-hall of sorts that was instanced, would be accessible only to guild-members, could issue temporary invites to non-guildies, and had a dueling area. Then we can make an invite-only event and advertise it for a certain day and time, where we'd run a dueling tournament. And also gamble on the winners and whatnot. This sounds like fun. But this is also PvP (the dueling part), and it has interactions with other player in an in-game atmosphere. Not just sitting around drinking tea and talking about our day.
So would a feature like this be considered good by those of you that want player-housing? Or is player housing in your minds only a personal private space that you can fully customize?
SWG/Pre-CU had 4 outta 7, imagine of they had added the other 3 instead making the NGE.
'nough said.
#1 - Tutorial
(1) basic hello world walk and talk (2) unobtrusive hints about how to find and get started with the various systems / minigames / recent patches (3) a sort of playable personality test that helps you find systems you might like and perhaps define your character's background/personality (4) walkthrough of the mythology/history of the game ( I find that games tend to fail to realize that their accumulated history is actually a *huge* selling point if they could harness it )
#2 - Malleable world
Seasons, event cycles, player-influenced points. Even a simple thing like a statue that shows a random person from the last group to complete a rare or epic quest adds a huge amount of depth. Part of it is being able to leave a mark, part of it is not getting bored when making new characters. I find it mind-boggling how little randomization most MMOs have - did MMO designers not play nethack in their youth?
#3 - Crafting
My personal measure of a fantasy game world is whether I can play a crafter with very limited combat skills and still feel like I'm having a fulfilling experience.
#4 - Grouping
Grouping is hard - this depends a lot on the personality types of the players and what they are looking for. I've enjoyed playing in a shared world, but when it comes right down to it I'm a loner - I like crossing paths with people, doing little things to help, sharing accidental adventures, but not "grouping" or guilding.
#5 - Housing
I see housing as a corner case of the more general idea of crafting + malleable world. It's just a corner of the world that you have total control over.
#6 - Economy
The most important thing to remember is that a free market rewards efficiency, not fun. If people are trying to have fun, the game's economy can easily become their enemy.
#7 - Social
Do you want a game in your facebook or a facebook in your game?
I couldn't agree with the article more.
As a hobby I try to design MMO concepts that deal with that stuff. And y'know it's not that hard to flesh it out. Sometimes I think alot of developers just sit down with an engine and slap a map together, then say "well, they'll buy this" so they put it in, "They'll buy this" and put it in, "We don't really need to do any thing new or try anything out of our reach" then they release it.
It's almost as if they are purposely avoiding giving players what they truly want.... It's not about gaming anymore, It's to much about money.
Godspeed my fellow gamer
I agree with everything but the housing issue.
Been playing since UO and I still just don't get all the clamoring for housing. It's either an open world eye sore(UO, AC1, SWG) or a useless instance(AO, EQ2, LOTRO).
If they're done right, they pull people away from the major towns and former hubs of activity become ghost towns.
If they're done wrong, everyone buys one, then they are left to languish, using valuable DB space serving as nothing more than decorative storage.
I guess I just don't get it.
Maybe someday some developer will create the perfect housing solution in MMO's and the light bulb will come on for me.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
i respectfully disagree
i found swg's crafting system very easy to get used to ounce you put in 1 or 2 hrs of work to figure it out
it even got fun
swg had one of the greatest crafting systems out there if not the greatest witch i believe it was and most people i talk to who like crafting tend to agree
just because you dont like crafting doesn't mean people who do like crafting didnt like swg's crafting system
iv playd many mmo's in my time and none of the crafting systems compare to swg's
as for UO never played it my self but i hear it was open pvp so
if that being the case you couldn't be more right almost all open pvp games have way too much grieffing
1st off i apologize if you didnt like swg as im going to use it as a prime example hear :P as they were the closest to geting it right
2nd thing to have a working housing system you have to have really large worlds with lots of open space like swg had
well it gives you a place of storage as well as a place to show off if the game does decorating right and gives a graphic to all the loot you can pick up
like in swg
and it lets the player have some creativity
and it can have other functions too
in swg you could build city's
and you could sell stuff from you house via vender witch was your own npc you higher to sell your wares
it could also serve as a meeting place i used my large house as the town crafting hub
or a place to hold an in game party
housing could serve many functions if done correctly
it also gives the player a sense of accomplishment as well as a sense of actual ownership of part of there game world
and it gives crafters a sense of the ability to actually influence a change in the game world
with a sort of "i built that" factor
what i have not seen done correctly concerning housing is upkeep
what they should do is ounce it goes derelict and with out payments
the house/building should disappear in 1-3 weeks after maintenance runs out
and there should be a max of 1-3 months maintenance you can pay on a house at any given time so that it will eventually disappear ounce neglected
while i love swg's housing and most players took advantage of it they did not do this and ended up with people who purposely built there full allotment of housing and paid years worth of maintenance on them and left them derelict
I would probably take exactly the opposite view.
The next MMO release will contain some or all of these features :
Crafting
Housing
Levelling
Gear
Experience
Quests
Talents/Skills
Dungeon crawling
What the next MMORPG should contain is none of the above. The entire MMO industry has been reskinning Everquest for too many years and it will continue doing so until one game designer can make a leap of imagination to create a brand new original game.
Everquest is a great game but it is time to move on.
I wouldn't see much of a game if you remove all of the above there. Levels AND Talents/Skills? The game would just be pure role-playing without any quantitative measuring stick to gauge any sort of character progression. A type of game without any listed above will be very niche and arguably too niche to even become self-sustainable (obviously based off speculation).
I think what the article lends itself to overall as a message is important and the major shortfall of this genre (despite how much I really do love the genre). The emphasis on combat and various forms of progression is inherent in most if not all of the most recent games. It's time for developers to look at these games from a more social angle and start catering to that end of the spectrum as well.
These MMORPG's currently seem to be played for the most part as big multiplayer single player games and once the content is exhausted (or the player is), they'll move on to the next MMORPG to rinse and repeat. That's my basic impression at least since few MMORPG's are being built with more emphasis for the long-term.
"I wouldn't see much of a game if you remove all of the above there. Levels AND Talents/Skills? The game would just be pure role-playing without any quantitative measuring stick to gauge any sort of character progression. A type of game without any listed above will be very niche and arguably too niche to even become self-sustainable (obviously based off speculation)."
Chess. (for example)
Has none of the above but is not a niche game. Now I know Chess is not an MMO but the leap of imagination that is required is to come up with an MMO that is NOT everquest.