No, seriously. Many of the things you'd like changed are different in this game and it's not a WoW clone. You don't wanna kill, you don't have to. There are levels but really they don't mean much. Not only all of that, but combat is more fluid, and I think even more fun then Dungeons and Dragons Online (which had one of the most active combat engines I've seen). It looks a little blocky compared to some of the other mmos out there, but what they do they do well. Try it out for a few days, you might be hooked. I know I was an I'm extremely picky when it comes to MMOs.
People here are having trouble defining what role-playing means.. It's the art of taking on the personality of someone that is different from you. It is very similar to acting or writing. The biggest difference is that it involves interacting with other people without the benefit of a script or an outlined plot that you already know the ending of.
The most difficult thing to understand about roleplaying is that you only get out of it what you put into it. You can’t just come into a room and sit in a corner and expect the others there to pull you into their RPing just out of the blue. Many people accuse RPers of being snobbish or elitist because they don’t go out of their way to include everyone they run across. The simple fact of the matter is, most RPers get very involved in their characters and the existing plots that they are participating in, and they never think about trying to drag in people they don’t know. Look at it this way...if you and some friends are standing around talking you usually won't try to pull nearby strangers into the conversation. If you want to be involved with a group of RPers, you have to actively involve yourself. But do so with politeness and consideration.
The trick to being a successful RPer is to have interesting characters. If your character has nothing of interest to say, then people won’t interact with you. It’s important to work out a full history and personality for your character, and to stick to it when interacting with others. It’s also important to not have a perfect character, or a ridiculously powerful character. Such characters will rapidly wear on the nerves of the other RPers you try to interact with.
The most important thing about Rping is to remember that everyone involved is in it for fun. Be polite, be considerate of the players behind the characters you interact with, and enjoy yourself. If you aren’t having fun, then you need to change something, either your character or the group of people you interact with.
I basically agree with this article, what developers should focus on is realism in the game mechanics. The more realistic and immserive the game mechanics are, the more it will cater towards actual role-players, who will play their character how they want. I have played Ultima Online for 10 years and let me tell everyone, that game is far better than WoW or WAR will ever be.. I played Darkfall and enjoyed the combat and the open world without instances, it was fun to explore and being able to go wherever I wanted without blockades or insible barriers.. I also enoyed the siege mechanics, the ships etc.. It was really neat..
Also, we must get rid of floating player name-tags.. WHY DO WE HAVE THESE IN ONLINE GAMES WITH PVP? By not having name-tags would cater towards everyone, by not having them alone would add in a new dimension of tactical combat, why would you want your "enemy" to see your name from 100 yards away? It just makes you an easy target and takes away from the game world, you should be able to use the game world to your advantage with sneak attacks, stealth etc..
Anyways, on tat note.. I am a old school roleplayer, I have been around for a very long time, I am even fluent in J.R.R Tolkiens Black Speech and the Elvish language known as Quenya..
Hate to sound like a broken record but as I've said many times before UO. Thats what this all boils down to lol.
No levels, no instances, the quests didn't feel as static and the story lines mainly came from actual devs IN GAME. They didn't just tell you about some epic invasion, you took part in it. They didn't just tell you that such and such needed help they took on NPC roles and acted it out.
I mean for the love of Jeebus, game news came from the lead developer Richard Garriott as he played his toon Lord British. We all would gather in his castle to hear the news.
Sure the FFA PvP may have been to much for some, but just about everything else is what gamers are clamoring for now days.
No more lvl's you got better at skills by using them. Death meant something and being a ghost was just neat on it's own. Player housing was was very entertaining and kept many busy for long long periods of time. Public quests, world quests, w/e you want to call them started in UO but were done better imo since the developers and GM's got in game and acted things out. These weren't recycled scripted quests, they were almost always unique.
Even leading up to the launch of The Stygian abyss devs and GM's took part in an event where players particiapted in the ushering in of the expansion. The combat, controls and graphics may be dated but the ideas are some that the MMO industry sorely needs to get back to.
I mean seriously lol. Everything in that Article basically asks for UO with the acception of combat and it's an MMO from 1997.
Well, since I'm cranky and old, let me take on these from a contrarian view.
1)Instancing. Sorry, but I don't remember Frodo and Sam getting in line behind 500 other people to kill Sauron. What I'd like to do away with is "Run the instance 500 times". An instance should be a special, unique, experience, ideally generated procedurally and not repeatable. You get one shot to kill Sauron. If you fail, that character can't try again.
2)Questing. I understand there's serious database/response time issues with this, but I'd like it if you can "complete" a quest without even knowing you're on it. I'm walking along, I kill Brog the Ogre King, I get to town, I discover there's a reward for killing Brog -- I get the reward then and there, I don't have to kill him again. I'd also like some sort of system which makes it a lot harder to just look up the quest's solutions online, but random quests end up being boring, predictable, and often bugged. (Ask me about the "quests" that UO shipped with. Yes, I played it at launch. Take off your rose-colored glasses, people, and stop pretending the drunken skank you lost your virginity to was the most beautiful girl in the world.)
3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:
a)Flavor Of The Month
b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".
c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')
d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".
e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".
I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.
2)Story. Sorry, but "This one time, me and my friends, we, like, totally ganked this n00b!" is not a story. Neither is "Behold, great hero, thou must go and killeth ye evile liche, just like 10,000 other people have done." The problem is, with present technology, there's really no hope for real story. Imagine if you create some kind of global quest which can cause 1 of 2 events to happen. Do this even 4 times, and you have 16 different possible world states to consider and balance. On a single server game, this might not be a problem, but if Server 1 is in State 12 and server 2 is in State 9, you've got a maintenance and support nightmare. I don't see a viable solution to the problem of story. Especially not when 99% of the player base is called "ifarkdurmomma" and "slaughterd00d99".
1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.
Well, since I'm cranky and old, let me take on these from a contrarian view.
1)Instancing. Sorry, but I don't remember Frodo and Sam getting in line behind 500 other people to kill Sauron. What I'd like to do away with is "Run the instance 500 times". An instance should be a special, unique, experience, ideally generated procedurally and not repeatable. You get one shot to kill Sauron. If you fail, that character can't try again.
2)Questing. I understand there's serious database/response time issues with this, but I'd like it if you can "complete" a quest without even knowing you're on it. I'm walking along, I kill Brog the Ogre King, I get to town, I discover there's a reward for killing Brog -- I get the reward then and there, I don't have to kill him again. I'd also like some sort of system which makes it a lot harder to just look up the quest's solutions online, but random quests end up being boring, predictable, and often bugged. (Ask me about the "quests" that UO shipped with. Yes, I played it at launch. Take off your rose-colored glasses, people, and stop pretending the drunken skank you lost your virginity to was the most beautiful girl in the world.)
Yes the noob quests in UO were like any other but thats what happens in tutorials. Thats also why I didn't mention them and instead talked about the Dev and GM run events that happened frequently. The ones where they acted out there roles and we aided who we aided. So no rose colored glasses here, just missing something I liked a lot that hasn't been reproduced.
3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:
a)Flavor Of The Month
b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".
c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')
d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".
e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".
I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.
Levels don't work any more than skilling up did. Here's where I ask you to take off the rose colored glasses. People get around levels just as easily even more so since all you have to do is focus on one thing that xp bar. Power leveling has been around as long as levels. Max level in most MMO's can be hit in days with different power leveling tactics that MMO's have.
And yes with the leveling system there is still the random swinging of the nerf bat because such and such job is OP'd or such and such class is gimped. Leveling has the same problems that skill based systems have and then some so... off with the rose colored glasses my friend.
2)Story. Sorry, but "This one time, me and my friends, we, like, totally ganked this n00b!" is not a story. Neither is "Behold, great hero, thou must go and killeth ye evile liche, just like 10,000 other people have done." The problem is, with present technology, there's really no hope for real story. Imagine if you create some kind of global quest which can cause 1 of 2 events to happen. Do this even 4 times, and you have 16 different possible world states to consider and balance. On a single server game, this might not be a problem, but if Server 1 is in State 12 and server 2 is in State 9, you've got a maintenance and support nightmare. I don't see a viable solution to the problem of story. Especially not when 99% of the player base is called "ifarkdurmomma" and "slaughterd00d99".
1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.
And here we are pushing the same age with the same experience pretty much and I just differ I preffer the fun fast paced combat. Slow and boring has got to go. Thats just me though. Reaction time is a skill, aim is a skill, those are your personal skills. Keep that in mind when you go on about wanting skill to matter and dismissing twitch. Because those are more about player skill than a slow paced combat relying on accuracy stats and such.
3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:
a)Flavor Of The Month
b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".
c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')
d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".
e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".
I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.
Ok my stab at a solution. Every npc faction can have players join them and fight for them (eg. in wow you can fight for the murloks), if you really need one that doesn't have players for starter characters give it no exp or no skill xp for any characters beyond starter levels. While the main factions (3 of them) should be reasonably stable the other factions constantly lose space get whiped out in certain area's try invading new areas, get set up in caves/hideouts etc.
Now make it reasonably easy to get up to mid levels/mid skill levels. To get beyond this however you have to start adding death penalties that let you reacher higher levels and give you bonuses. Low level isn't much just extra armour damage, summoning sickness etc. Mid level would be lose exp you recently gained drop armour etc. To get to max level you need to risk perma death.
Basically the goal here is that you should always be at risk the higher level you push yourself the higher the risk. You shouldn't be able to hide yourself away in an instance or arena with your alt an practice swinging your sword against them. If you wanna fight you need to be risking versing players out there even if most of who you meet are NPC's. Would you really trust a macro to get you to max level against players when theres perma-death at stake?
1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed.
Sorta agree with this. I mean reactions and what are nice but I shouldn't have to sit here spamming a key like a madman so I hit it just as my move comes out of cooldown. A system like eve where you just press it once and it will keep going till you run out of ammo, get out of range or lose lock on your target is good imo. I think it has place for some classes/systems but only for some classes where it makes sense not for every single class and every single action.
Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.
I mostly agree with this, watching some heavily armoured soldier bounce around like the world is a giant trampoline is just painful. I like how it's done in a game like dynasty warriors, you can jump pretty high do a attack in the air etc. but it slows you down you basically stop moving for a couple seconds after you land. However I think for the right class it could make sense, for example a ninja class bouncing around between trees instead of running around on the ground would be awesome.
Basically what we need is worlds that make more sense. We need to focus on what is good for the virtual world not so much on each individual player.
Before I even consider playing a MMO anymore I look at two things. How much grinding there is going to be & if the quests are worth the effort because frankly I hate both options.
1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.
Beautifully put! I've always had the thought that true RPG combat is in essence a game of strategy and tactics. The skill involved has nothing to do with how fast a person can button mash and bunny hop, rather how effectively one can use the abilities he's given.
Games evolve, true, but there's a big difference between evolution and metamorphosis. The changes I see proposed by some people are akin to wanting to add baskets and a free throw line to a football field. I guarantee that the ratio of people wanting to add RPG elements to shooters is miniscule to those wanting to add shooter elements to RPGs. Either pick a genre and stick with it, or learn to love the genre you're playing.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
For the story part if most are like me you are getting tired of grinding and doing the same boring quests so you just click right through the story. Instead of taking the time to read it you click and move on to the next quest.
Perhaps what would be nice is if say every 10 levels all of what you have accomplished is put into a movie form or some cinematic and you can access it through your menu option whenever you want. That way we get more of a movie feel starring our own character.
How about an mmo with no ranged classes. Sure you will get some people saying you need ranged. But the greatest factor to unbalanced pvp is having ranged and melee together. Make a game with all melee and actually take some time and imagination to make unique skills for each class.
Also for leveling it needs to be sloooow. I hated Aion for how slow it was to level. But as time went on I realized that it actually gave me more of an appreciation for the armor I worked hard for and the skills I got every few levels. Sure it sucks you wanna get to end game asap but thats not what its about.
If your like me with every game I get to max level fast and I can and do it in a few days. Then I say to myself what to do now? I can pvp but you need a break from that now and again. What now? Grind same boring instances? There has to be more to an mmo then just leveling super fast. You have to have fun along the way or there is no reason to play it.
But in order to make leveling slow and make it enjoyable there has to be something to leveling besides same boring gathering quests. Its gotta change every few levels something completley new every few levels.
Another thing I will say that I did like about Aion was that a person that took time to stop mid lvl and twink out there gear could kill someone who power leveld to max level with crap gear.There should be rewards for playing your character to its full potential and not just rushing the whole experience.
Hope any of this made sense trying to fit this in before my Tee time.
One more thing that really bothers me. WHY IN THE WORLD IS THERE NO ORIGINALITY IN THE GAMING WORLD? I have so many ideas for great games even got them all written down some with storys, yet you have these companys with plenty of people and nothing original coming from them.
Sword and board tank, hybrid melee, rouge of some sort, mage, healer. Why the F$%k does this have to always be the case in most games? Really? is this all they can think of? So many minds and so little imagination?
I know there are many people out there with the same thoughts as I have but I am to the point of pure frustration at what garbage they come out with. We are forced to wait years for an upcoming game to realize that its absolutely terrible or they didnt listen to the community at all.
God pray that star wars saves us all or I am going back to tetris
I'm suprised more of the new MMOs don't utilize Warhammers public quest ideas. This was really the only thing I absolutely loved about that game. No need to talk to an npc, or read, you just jump in, take out a bunch of enemies, get a reward. What more do you need? I would love to see a game with "zone" quests just like warhammer public quests. You enter a zone (zone like WoW, not an instance) and the objectives for the zone pop up. You can choose a side and get to work on the objectives
Yeah, I'd agree with a lot of these points. Honestly, SWG had a fine leveling system, prior to the NGE. I'm surprised more haven't to refine this. Call a class whatever you want, it still comes down to tanking, healing, and DPS.
Combat is a tough one. The problem, to me, is the mob one fights and how many mobs are required. To start, if a mob stands in one place and hits me, I'll stand in one place and do whatever is most efficient to kill the mob. If it takes 2 skills or 7 skills, I'll find my method and repeat it until the mob is dead. That can be fixed with interesting mob mechanics and AI. However, if I have to pull out some crazy tactics on 5 million mobs while I level, I'm going to go insane. Battles need to feel important, I'm tired of killing butterflies (or dying because of butterflies) and rats.
We, as gamers, are to blame as well. We don't embrace change very easily. Whenever a company does try to change things up, we freak out. As much as we hate the "kill ten rats" quests, some people get weirded out when they're gone.
Agreed, good old SWG had a very nice leveling system, no lvls just skills. I cant understand why other MMO's didnt try something like that again. EVE is one of the only games i can remember that is skill based and not lvl based and i have to say imho it is way better.
Talking about combat, again, good old SWG had a very nice combat system, fast, dynamic, with very cool moves, something i miss since they screwed it up with NGE untill now. I have never found another MMO with a combat system i enjoyed so much.
People actually want games that take no skill? What's the point? We have movies to tell us stories, and if you really wish to role-play, you've got your alternatives. Granted, and interactive, skill-less story has it's place, but it shouldn't dominate the genre like it does now. Games should be able to be completed by everyone, but there needs to be some level of skill involved to sperate the good from the bad. Not as a means to attain status, but to allow skilled players to have a chance against better-geared people with less skill. Not to mention FPS "twitch" mechanics create a much more enjoyable experience than auto-attack. People just have to grow up and realize they're not going to be the best, but they can still enjoy the game if they try. AoC's done a decent job, as did Hellgate, but we need to see more attempts.
1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.
Beautifully put! I've always had the thought that true RPG combat is in essence a game of strategy and tactics. The skill involved has nothing to do with how fast a person can button mash and bunny hop, rather how effectively one can use the abilities he's given.
Games evolve, true, but there's a big difference between evolution and metamorphosis. The changes I see proposed by some people are akin to wanting to add baskets and a free throw line to a football field. I guarantee that the ratio of people wanting to add RPG elements to shooters is miniscule to those wanting to add shooter elements to RPGs. Either pick a genre and stick with it, or learn to love the genre you're playing.
Why pick a genre if you like both? Why do they need to be mutually exclusive of eachother? People are acting as if RPG and FPS have been around since the creation of the universe and can never change. Both or only a few decades old, its not like its some ancient tradition that we must stick to, and we betetr not dare blend the 2. Theres no reason a 3rd genre cant be created called MMOFPSRPG.
That doesnt mean every game will be MMOFPSRPG, just that there will now be 3 choices instead of 2, and as you said... pick a genre. You can stick to RPG, some will stick to FPS, and some of us will enjoy the mix of the best of both genres.
Instancing has already been innovated by Blizzard with their 'phasing' technology. it works really well and I'd like to see it in more MMO's.
Fans of combat that is more skill-based should check out Dungeons and Dragons Online, it has the best combat I've found in a MMO. It's a shame that MMO developers are scared of making their combat twichey.
_________________________________________ You can walk the walk but can you talk the talk?
That doesnt mean every game will be MMOFPSRPG, just that there will now be 3 choices instead of 2, and as you said... pick a genre. You can stick to RPG, some will stick to FPS, and some of us will enjoy the mix of the best of both genres.
Except that it won't be the 'best of both worlds' it will be the worst of both. MMO devs have a hard enough time getting traditional RPG mechanics to work right in an MMO.
The industry has a lot of maturing to do before the devs can mix and match cross-genre mechanics well.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
MMO played (paid): AION DragonRaja Dungeons & Dragons Online Lineage Lineage 2 Tibia Ultima Online Warhammer Online World of Warcraft
MMO tried: Atlantica Online Darkfall Dead Frontier Dungeon Runners EverQuest Lord of the Rings Online Monster Hunter Frontier Online Ragnarok Online Requiem Runes of Magic Runescape The 4th Coming
Well there I see your problem. Your playing a game online with 100's of other people. What, you think this is supposed to be a single player game? Your an individual, just like everyone else who plays. Happy grinding!
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Lots of people can't get into EvE. Me being one of them. I am not saying its a good game because it is. But I am not a fan of flying a ship kinda mmo. Just doesn't feel personal enough.
Sandbox is the future... open world without boundries or artificial limitations.
Developers should set the theme, give us the tools, monitor and provide support.
YES!!! This is what I want. My ultimate MMORPG wet-dream would be for developers to create a world for us to play in. There are no town built for us, there are no vendor NPCs. Think of it like colonizing a new world. The resources are already there and we simply use those resources to build our civilization. I honestly doubt this will ever happen but that's why it's a dream.
Nice article by the way. I remember back in my Anarchy Online (AO) days when a clan...I don't remember their name, maybe "Sands of something-or-other". Anyway, not important, but this clan would pick random times and places to suddenly appear and wipe the entire area clear of people, NPCs and generally anything that got in their way. After they were done and after some of them were killed they would simply leave the area. They were sanctioned by the GMs and there were news releases about the "Sands of something-or-other" conducting another terrorist attack at "such-and-such" City. THAT was player driven story/content and THAT is what I want again.
A few years ago I would agree with you, now I dont... The MMORPG community have evolved to something different, leaving their ´dream of RPG´ and naive ways behind... Today everyone is looking for the soft spot on any MMO, the way to level faster, to explore PvP weakness of the system... Everyone, after so many years of the same thing, same grind, same combat just wanna pass this part.. Do not want to explore, to wonder and marvel with the world itself, faking that we are on a magical and mysterious world... The old school knows all the tricks, from lolcopterism to fast grinding... The community, with a free world to roam would transform it in something like a theme park guided by the ´sage old school´ (i.e. ´Do you wanna to kill X? Dont use this weapon, use this in this postion and with this ammo, jumping when shooting, you always make triple damage´- ´Do not go to area Y, the area X is better because you will have a more time x XP rate from hour´)... They would hastly discover a way to spoil it and transform it on a FPS, like Half-Life 2... On DFO, for example, they ask ´why home?´ - and if the answer is not something to give them a advantage on PvP, it doesnt matter... Even on SWG Pre-CUthey were building cities with houses on a defensive form, to make it easier to defend... (the housing was no more some spice to RP or to the world itself,but one more way to exploit the game)...
We would have to bring back the naive MMORPG, something completly new that would dazzle the old school vet, taht they would tak a few years before starting to spoil it...
Face of Mankind tried this and it failed. Leaders were able to make their own missions sure but you'd look at the missions and they'd all be like "go to this sector and make sure no one attacks". A lot of people don't have the imagination to make a good mission. It would be nice to have a game that people can make their own missions and we had various types of missions like kidnapping and robbing (if your a crook), or assassinate someone...etc. Also there would have to be a decent story behind it and a reason for doing these things and people don't want to take the time and write a good quest with a good story. So they make these simple boring quests.
NPCs that don't just stand there. Sure, we've got a few walkers here and there but, really, would it kill to get these poor saps a chair every now and again? And a couple of breaks. I'm pretty sure none of the bankers have had a piss break in several years. NPC worker rights!
I agree completely. It's an issue of immersion. Why bother to do away with things like floating symbols (GW2) when the NPC's stand in one position all day doing nothing anyway? It seems to me that completely misses the point of removing identifiers.
I liked the way that Bethesda (Oblvion/Fallout3) handled NPCs in that they had lives and things to do. Sure they spent a lot of time talking about meaningless stuff but it was an evolution in gaming. And how sad it is that something so minor is an evolution...
I don't know, I just feel like having dynamic game-affecting events means nothing if the places players pend their time the most are completely stagnant.
Here are some of my suggestions as to how to improve MMOs... nobody seems to have thought of them yet...
To replace classes, add "sliders". Essentially, you get to adjust your damage, defence, healing, aggro, aoe, etc the way you want to and potentially "on the fly" and/or through profiles. A decent example would be how Trekkies divert power from their warp core to their shields. The difference, though, is that the more you use a certain style, e.g. if you take a lot of damage by having your defence high, then your maximum defence would be higher than someone who chooses to damage all the time.
What that would mean is that you would Always have variety. Got bored of damage dealing? How about tanking for a bit, or go healing for a while? It would also remove barriers that healers/tanks have when levelling compared to damage dealers. The change would allow you to experience a lot of different play styles with the same character, yet you will become stronger at whatever you like doing most. This will differentiate players, plus it will make grouping much, much easier!
PvP would also be more interesting too as people switch between high damage, tanking, healing
Combat to be skill/character based. Not sure how to "title" that one... but here's my idea. Think of a FPS where you have a pixel for your crosshair. A lvl 1would have to shoot the enemy directly with their crosshair to get a hit. There would also be critical zones, e.g. a headshot vs humanoids... meaning that a good player with good accuracy could heavily out-damage a not-so-good player with not-so-good accuracy - Even someone of higher level!
The levelling, though, does come into account. As your character levels, your crosshair point stays the same, but it takes on an outer-crosshair (think of a circle at the centre and an outer-circle). If you shoot whilst your enemy is anywhere within the OUTER circle, you get a hit or crit as appropritate. Essentially, this would mean that it becomes easier to aim as your character levels... but that a better player could still beat you.
This could be applied to many things.
Crafting - To my knowledge, nobody has created a good crafting system. Its always about gathering and then selling crap to NPCs and the Auction House at lower prices than the materials are worth.
They should consider real life a lot more. Start newbies out at collecting wood, then when you get enough skill you can start crafting components. Once you're crafting components, you can set up "contracts" which newer players can sign-up and you pay them for collecting your materials. Somebody is then paying you for your components so that they can build items, e.g. weapons, etc. Those are then sold in a building where you rent an NPC to hold onto your items. That building is then owned by a player who earns the rent from everyone involved. That building was sold to him by another player who moved to a higher level zone where the shops and items are bigger and the rent can be charged higher.
Guild houses would also be used as shopping areas where people would not be charged tax - thus making it more enticing for people to visit guild halls as prices would be cheaper.
Aution Houses would show all items in all houses/guild halls, but they would always charge a 10-20% fee on top. The key other factor would be that it would show the location of the place that was selling it. You could then add a waypoint on your map and be able to visit the house/shop/guild hall and save yourself 10-20%. Woohoo - a point of having houses/guild halls!! They would be the modern shopping centres of the world!
You get the idea... a whole new economy lead by the players! I'd also try to implement dynamic NPC pricing on items based on the number of items sold to the public. Essentially making it so that... when a product floods the market then the NPCs will buy them for more than publically available. When people start all selling to the NPCs they will pay you less and people will start buying from the public again. This would mean that shrewd players could monitor markets and shift their emphasis into up-and-coming markets instead of flooded, dying markets.
Thats enough typing for now. I really hope that games try to push the boundaries, because they all get very stale, very fast lately. Essentially because they have been the same for the last 10 years!
Lots of people can't get into EvE. Me being one of them. I am not saying its a good game because it is. But I am not a fan of flying a ship kinda mmo. Just doesn't feel personal enough.
I think a fantasy game done in the Eve style might be a big hit, but I don't see anything even close on the horizon. Rather a shame really as all these "me too" type of games just compete with each other and don't really offer anything new, that includes the new Star Wars that Bioware is making, all that game is is Wow in space, except we don't know if they will have a space part to it.
Comments
My advice? Try Mabinogi.
No, seriously. Many of the things you'd like changed are different in this game and it's not a WoW clone. You don't wanna kill, you don't have to. There are levels but really they don't mean much. Not only all of that, but combat is more fluid, and I think even more fun then Dungeons and Dragons Online (which had one of the most active combat engines I've seen). It looks a little blocky compared to some of the other mmos out there, but what they do they do well. Try it out for a few days, you might be hooked. I know I was an I'm extremely picky when it comes to MMOs.
People here are having trouble defining what role-playing means.. It's the art of taking on the personality of someone that is different from you. It is very similar to acting or writing. The biggest difference is that it involves interacting with other people without the benefit of a script or an outlined plot that you already know the ending of.
The most difficult thing to understand about roleplaying is that you only get out of it what you put into it. You can’t just come into a room and sit in a corner and expect the others there to pull you into their RPing just out of the blue. Many people accuse RPers of being snobbish or elitist because they don’t go out of their way to include everyone they run across. The simple fact of the matter is, most RPers get very involved in their characters and the existing plots that they are participating in, and they never think about trying to drag in people they don’t know. Look at it this way...if you and some friends are standing around talking you usually won't try to pull nearby strangers into the conversation. If you want to be involved with a group of RPers, you have to actively involve yourself. But do so with politeness and consideration.
The trick to being a successful RPer is to have interesting characters. If your character has nothing of interest to say, then people won’t interact with you. It’s important to work out a full history and personality for your character, and to stick to it when interacting with others. It’s also important to not have a perfect character, or a ridiculously powerful character. Such characters will rapidly wear on the nerves of the other RPers you try to interact with.
The most important thing about Rping is to remember that everyone involved is in it for fun. Be polite, be considerate of the players behind the characters you interact with, and enjoy yourself. If you aren’t having fun, then you need to change something, either your character or the group of people you interact with.
I basically agree with this article, what developers should focus on is realism in the game mechanics. The more realistic and immserive the game mechanics are, the more it will cater towards actual role-players, who will play their character how they want. I have played Ultima Online for 10 years and let me tell everyone, that game is far better than WoW or WAR will ever be.. I played Darkfall and enjoyed the combat and the open world without instances, it was fun to explore and being able to go wherever I wanted without blockades or insible barriers.. I also enoyed the siege mechanics, the ships etc.. It was really neat..
Also, we must get rid of floating player name-tags.. WHY DO WE HAVE THESE IN ONLINE GAMES WITH PVP? By not having name-tags would cater towards everyone, by not having them alone would add in a new dimension of tactical combat, why would you want your "enemy" to see your name from 100 yards away? It just makes you an easy target and takes away from the game world, you should be able to use the game world to your advantage with sneak attacks, stealth etc..
Anyways, on tat note.. I am a old school roleplayer, I have been around for a very long time, I am even fluent in J.R.R Tolkiens Black Speech and the Elvish language known as Quenya..
Hate to sound like a broken record but as I've said many times before UO. Thats what this all boils down to lol.
No levels, no instances, the quests didn't feel as static and the story lines mainly came from actual devs IN GAME. They didn't just tell you about some epic invasion, you took part in it. They didn't just tell you that such and such needed help they took on NPC roles and acted it out.
I mean for the love of Jeebus, game news came from the lead developer Richard Garriott as he played his toon Lord British. We all would gather in his castle to hear the news.
Sure the FFA PvP may have been to much for some, but just about everything else is what gamers are clamoring for now days.
No more lvl's you got better at skills by using them. Death meant something and being a ghost was just neat on it's own. Player housing was was very entertaining and kept many busy for long long periods of time. Public quests, world quests, w/e you want to call them started in UO but were done better imo since the developers and GM's got in game and acted things out. These weren't recycled scripted quests, they were almost always unique.
Even leading up to the launch of The Stygian abyss devs and GM's took part in an event where players particiapted in the ushering in of the expansion. The combat, controls and graphics may be dated but the ideas are some that the MMO industry sorely needs to get back to.
I mean seriously lol. Everything in that Article basically asks for UO with the acception of combat and it's an MMO from 1997.
Well, since I'm cranky and old, let me take on these from a contrarian view.
1)Instancing. Sorry, but I don't remember Frodo and Sam getting in line behind 500 other people to kill Sauron. What I'd like to do away with is "Run the instance 500 times". An instance should be a special, unique, experience, ideally generated procedurally and not repeatable. You get one shot to kill Sauron. If you fail, that character can't try again.
2)Questing. I understand there's serious database/response time issues with this, but I'd like it if you can "complete" a quest without even knowing you're on it. I'm walking along, I kill Brog the Ogre King, I get to town, I discover there's a reward for killing Brog -- I get the reward then and there, I don't have to kill him again. I'd also like some sort of system which makes it a lot harder to just look up the quest's solutions online, but random quests end up being boring, predictable, and often bugged. (Ask me about the "quests" that UO shipped with. Yes, I played it at launch. Take off your rose-colored glasses, people, and stop pretending the drunken skank you lost your virginity to was the most beautiful girl in the world.)
3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:
a)Flavor Of The Month
b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".
c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')
d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".
e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".
I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.
2)Story. Sorry, but "This one time, me and my friends, we, like, totally ganked this n00b!" is not a story. Neither is "Behold, great hero, thou must go and killeth ye evile liche, just like 10,000 other people have done." The problem is, with present technology, there's really no hope for real story. Imagine if you create some kind of global quest which can cause 1 of 2 events to happen. Do this even 4 times, and you have 16 different possible world states to consider and balance. On a single server game, this might not be a problem, but if Server 1 is in State 12 and server 2 is in State 9, you've got a maintenance and support nightmare. I don't see a viable solution to the problem of story. Especially not when 99% of the player base is called "ifarkdurmomma" and "slaughterd00d99".
1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.
Into the breach meatbags
Before I even consider playing a MMO anymore I look at two things. How much grinding there is going to be & if the quests are worth the effort because frankly I hate both options.
Beautifully put! I've always had the thought that true RPG combat is in essence a game of strategy and tactics. The skill involved has nothing to do with how fast a person can button mash and bunny hop, rather how effectively one can use the abilities he's given.
Games evolve, true, but there's a big difference between evolution and metamorphosis. The changes I see proposed by some people are akin to wanting to add baskets and a free throw line to a football field. I guarantee that the ratio of people wanting to add RPG elements to shooters is miniscule to those wanting to add shooter elements to RPGs. Either pick a genre and stick with it, or learn to love the genre you're playing.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
Perhaps what would be nice is if say every 10 levels all of what you have accomplished is put into a movie form or some cinematic and you can access it through your menu option whenever you want. That way we get more of a movie feel starring our own character.
How about an mmo with no ranged classes. Sure you will get some people saying you need ranged. But the greatest factor to unbalanced pvp is having ranged and melee together. Make a game with all melee and actually take some time and imagination to make unique skills for each class.
Also for leveling it needs to be sloooow. I hated Aion for how slow it was to level. But as time went on I realized that it actually gave me more of an appreciation for the armor I worked hard for and the skills I got every few levels. Sure it sucks you wanna get to end game asap but thats not what its about.
If your like me with every game I get to max level fast and I can and do it in a few days. Then I say to myself what to do now? I can pvp but you need a break from that now and again. What now? Grind same boring instances? There has to be more to an mmo then just leveling super fast. You have to have fun along the way or there is no reason to play it.
But in order to make leveling slow and make it enjoyable there has to be something to leveling besides same boring gathering quests. Its gotta change every few levels something completley new every few levels.
Another thing I will say that I did like about Aion was that a person that took time to stop mid lvl and twink out there gear could kill someone who power leveld to max level with crap gear.There should be rewards for playing your character to its full potential and not just rushing the whole experience.
Hope any of this made sense trying to fit this in before my Tee time.
One more thing that really bothers me. WHY IN THE WORLD IS THERE NO ORIGINALITY IN THE GAMING WORLD? I have so many ideas for great games even got them all written down some with storys, yet you have these companys with plenty of people and nothing original coming from them.
Sword and board tank, hybrid melee, rouge of some sort, mage, healer. Why the F$%k does this have to always be the case in most games? Really? is this all they can think of? So many minds and so little imagination?
I know there are many people out there with the same thoughts as I have but I am to the point of pure frustration at what garbage they come out with. We are forced to wait years for an upcoming game to realize that its absolutely terrible or they didnt listen to the community at all.
God pray that star wars saves us all or I am going back to tetris
I'm suprised more of the new MMOs don't utilize Warhammers public quest ideas. This was really the only thing I absolutely loved about that game. No need to talk to an npc, or read, you just jump in, take out a bunch of enemies, get a reward. What more do you need?
I would love to see a game with "zone" quests just like warhammer public quests. You enter a zone (zone like WoW, not an instance) and the objectives for the zone pop up. You can choose a side and get to work on the objectives 
Agreed, good old SWG had a very nice leveling system, no lvls just skills. I cant understand why other MMO's didnt try something like that again. EVE is one of the only games i can remember that is skill based and not lvl based and i have to say imho it is way better.
Talking about combat, again, good old SWG had a very nice combat system, fast, dynamic, with very cool moves, something i miss since they screwed it up with NGE untill now. I have never found another MMO with a combat system i enjoyed so much.
People actually want games that take no skill? What's the point? We have movies to tell us stories, and if you really wish to role-play, you've got your alternatives. Granted, and interactive, skill-less story has it's place, but it shouldn't dominate the genre like it does now. Games should be able to be completed by everyone, but there needs to be some level of skill involved to sperate the good from the bad. Not as a means to attain status, but to allow skilled players to have a chance against better-geared people with less skill. Not to mention FPS "twitch" mechanics create a much more enjoyable experience than auto-attack. People just have to grow up and realize they're not going to be the best, but they can still enjoy the game if they try. AoC's done a decent job, as did Hellgate, but we need to see more attempts.
Why pick a genre if you like both? Why do they need to be mutually exclusive of eachother? People are acting as if RPG and FPS have been around since the creation of the universe and can never change. Both or only a few decades old, its not like its some ancient tradition that we must stick to, and we betetr not dare blend the 2. Theres no reason a 3rd genre cant be created called MMOFPSRPG.
That doesnt mean every game will be MMOFPSRPG, just that there will now be 3 choices instead of 2, and as you said... pick a genre. You can stick to RPG, some will stick to FPS, and some of us will enjoy the mix of the best of both genres.
Instancing has already been innovated by Blizzard with their 'phasing' technology. it works really well and I'd like to see it in more MMO's.
Fans of combat that is more skill-based should check out Dungeons and Dragons Online, it has the best combat I've found in a MMO. It's a shame that MMO developers are scared of making their combat twichey.
_________________________________________
You can walk the walk but can you talk the talk?
Except that it won't be the 'best of both worlds' it will be the worst of both. MMO devs have a hard enough time getting traditional RPG mechanics to work right in an MMO.
The industry has a lot of maturing to do before the devs can mix and match cross-genre mechanics well.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Where is the "like this" button?
I totally agree with these points!
MMO played (paid):
AION
DragonRaja
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Lineage
Lineage 2
Tibia
Ultima Online
Warhammer Online
World of Warcraft
MMO tried:
Atlantica Online
Darkfall
Dead Frontier
Dungeon Runners
EverQuest
Lord of the Rings Online
Monster Hunter Frontier Online
Ragnarok Online
Requiem
Runes of Magic
Runescape
The 4th Coming
and some other Chinese/Korean or beta MMOs
Dosn't EVE solve almost every one of these "issues"?
WTF podded again?
Well there I see your problem. Your playing a game online with 100's of other people. What, you think this is supposed to be a single player game? Your an individual, just like everyone else who plays. Happy grinding!
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Lots of people can't get into EvE. Me being one of them. I am not saying its a good game because it is. But I am not a fan of flying a ship kinda mmo. Just doesn't feel personal enough.
Face of Mankind tried this and it failed. Leaders were able to make their own missions sure but you'd look at the missions and they'd all be like "go to this sector and make sure no one attacks". A lot of people don't have the imagination to make a good mission. It would be nice to have a game that people can make their own missions and we had various types of missions like kidnapping and robbing (if your a crook), or assassinate someone...etc. Also there would have to be a decent story behind it and a reason for doing these things and people don't want to take the time and write a good quest with a good story. So they make these simple boring quests.
I agree completely. It's an issue of immersion. Why bother to do away with things like floating symbols (GW2) when the NPC's stand in one position all day doing nothing anyway? It seems to me that completely misses the point of removing identifiers.
I liked the way that Bethesda (Oblvion/Fallout3) handled NPCs in that they had lives and things to do. Sure they spent a lot of time talking about meaningless stuff but it was an evolution in gaming. And how sad it is that something so minor is an evolution...
I don't know, I just feel like having dynamic game-affecting events means nothing if the places players pend their time the most are completely stagnant.
Here are some of my suggestions as to how to improve MMOs... nobody seems to have thought of them yet...
To replace classes, add "sliders". Essentially, you get to adjust your damage, defence, healing, aggro, aoe, etc the way you want to and potentially "on the fly" and/or through profiles. A decent example would be how Trekkies divert power from their warp core to their shields. The difference, though, is that the more you use a certain style, e.g. if you take a lot of damage by having your defence high, then your maximum defence would be higher than someone who chooses to damage all the time.
What that would mean is that you would Always have variety. Got bored of damage dealing? How about tanking for a bit, or go healing for a while? It would also remove barriers that healers/tanks have when levelling compared to damage dealers. The change would allow you to experience a lot of different play styles with the same character, yet you will become stronger at whatever you like doing most. This will differentiate players, plus it will make grouping much, much easier!
PvP would also be more interesting too as people switch between high damage, tanking, healing
Combat to be skill/character based. Not sure how to "title" that one... but here's my idea. Think of a FPS where you have a pixel for your crosshair. A lvl 1would have to shoot the enemy directly with their crosshair to get a hit. There would also be critical zones, e.g. a headshot vs humanoids... meaning that a good player with good accuracy could heavily out-damage a not-so-good player with not-so-good accuracy - Even someone of higher level!
The levelling, though, does come into account. As your character levels, your crosshair point stays the same, but it takes on an outer-crosshair (think of a circle at the centre and an outer-circle). If you shoot whilst your enemy is anywhere within the OUTER circle, you get a hit or crit as appropritate. Essentially, this would mean that it becomes easier to aim as your character levels... but that a better player could still beat you.
This could be applied to many things.
Crafting - To my knowledge, nobody has created a good crafting system. Its always about gathering and then selling crap to NPCs and the Auction House at lower prices than the materials are worth.
They should consider real life a lot more. Start newbies out at collecting wood, then when you get enough skill you can start crafting components. Once you're crafting components, you can set up "contracts" which newer players can sign-up and you pay them for collecting your materials. Somebody is then paying you for your components so that they can build items, e.g. weapons, etc. Those are then sold in a building where you rent an NPC to hold onto your items. That building is then owned by a player who earns the rent from everyone involved. That building was sold to him by another player who moved to a higher level zone where the shops and items are bigger and the rent can be charged higher.
Guild houses would also be used as shopping areas where people would not be charged tax - thus making it more enticing for people to visit guild halls as prices would be cheaper.
Aution Houses would show all items in all houses/guild halls, but they would always charge a 10-20% fee on top. The key other factor would be that it would show the location of the place that was selling it. You could then add a waypoint on your map and be able to visit the house/shop/guild hall and save yourself 10-20%. Woohoo - a point of having houses/guild halls!! They would be the modern shopping centres of the world!
You get the idea... a whole new economy lead by the players! I'd also try to implement dynamic NPC pricing on items based on the number of items sold to the public. Essentially making it so that... when a product floods the market then the NPCs will buy them for more than publically available. When people start all selling to the NPCs they will pay you less and people will start buying from the public again. This would mean that shrewd players could monitor markets and shift their emphasis into up-and-coming markets instead of flooded, dying markets.
Thats enough typing for now. I really hope that games try to push the boundaries, because they all get very stale, very fast lately. Essentially because they have been the same for the last 10 years!
I think a fantasy game done in the Eve style might be a big hit, but I don't see anything even close on the horizon. Rather a shame really as all these "me too" type of games just compete with each other and don't really offer anything new, that includes the new Star Wars that Bioware is making, all that game is is Wow in space, except we don't know if they will have a space part to it.