L2 also lacks collision, hitboxes and many other things that are charted by the server itself. Again, it's not just about graphics, because yeah, some super computers can handle that. It's about information logged across the host server, and modern games have far morr going on than L2, which by today's standards - is ancient.
Ok, good to know, but still, it's possible to have hundreds of players in one area.
Now, having said that, I like the idea of player collision as long as the pvp supports it as a useful tool.
But I don't think a good pvp game requires it but it's nice, I'll grant you that.
Yes, player collision is a whole seperate beast that justifies its own thread. It requires a ton more planning.
It can be very useful in PvP, such as laying ambushes, blocking exits, etc. But this should ONLY be implemented if the game is designed for it. If its not a major pull to the game, its just too costly.
Wow, this thread is really on fire. I was just browsing around offline, but I just HAVE to take part in this. Call me a noob, call me a rebel, whatever you want, I don't care.
There are many ways you can go into this, because so many of you have discussed so many aspects on the subject. But my opinion on the initial topic, is well, yes, freedom is good. I think many of us misunderstand what definition of freedom we are talking about here. My definition of freedom, is to be able to craft our own story in an RPG and yes, some of our actions may bring consecuences, but that's the whole thrill about it.
Yes, maybe in real life such actions like speeding past a red light might cause a crash and most likely followed by death. But to me, that's the whole point of a videogame, to ESCAPE reality, my philosophy on games is that, all the developers and the whole team in it's entirity work together to IMAGINE something, form it into a DREAM, and sculpt that dream into our "REALITY". Think of it this way, our fast asleep in your bed, and your in the middle of a dream. All these big game companies and what not, are handing you the control to your dream, allowing you to do whatever you want.
Now, obviously there is a difference to theme park games and a sandbox game. In a theme park, the devs are giving you the scenery and a certain backstory for you to guide yourself in. A sandbox, just offers your the scenery, it's up to you what happens in it.
Now, I think what our friend here is trying to say is, that some games kinda do strip some of our freedoms. Like such games that make you follow a story line, and there really anything else to do but that. Now obviously everyone has their own opinion and they might even like games like that. But I really have to agree with the one line about "Making mistakes and having to deal with the domino effect later", the whole talk about balance really does make games feel kinda dull. So what if some overpowered player comes out of nowhere and woops your ass? your just gonna quit the game? I don't care who you are, I just see you as a wimp. Instead that should fill you with energy and momentum to take your character and spend countless hours buffing your character and finnaly wooping that guys ass, It feels rewarding.
Now another example I would like to include on my own account, is how linear some games can get. (I'm using WoW in my example since it's a very simple one to relate to) Games like WoW are a bit "free" but after spending days forming a group, or rallying your guild, and say spend countless hours and casualties raiding ICC, yeah it's rewarding throughout the way, but in the end, you finnaly down the Lich King.....now what? So that would be another example of my definition of freedom...
Umm, I hope I haven't left anything out. Excuse my horrible grammer skills. And hopefully you either agree or disagree in a civilized manner. So in conclusion, I say yes to freedom, complete freedom.
DesolateWolf, your points are rather sound when describing a single-player game. If you put it in the context of a multiplayer game, you start to see how that all falls apart.
Can I steal your car? Can I kill you on your way to your car? What if I run over you with my car? See, you'd like to 'escape reality' and go speeding through red lights in your virtual car, but you aren't taking into consideration that others have the same freedoms as you. After multiple failed attempts to even get to your car to go speeding, you'd probably get rather frustrated with the amount of 'freedom' in the game.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I understand your point, I may have left out a couple of details, I tend to do that and I apologize. But just like in real life we would be punished for such actions by the authorities, so should we in the virtual world, creating "some bounderies" to the game, and not just let chaos roam free and destroy the game itself. So now, here is where we split the good and the bad, the classic "clash" some of you have been discussing between good and evil. Some of you want to help the police and stop that car jacker, and some of you want to help him escape. (keep in mind this has now turned as a cops and robbers situation, but I'm only using it as an outline) what you were telling me was that this might get annoying as maybe one side becomes stronger and over rules the other.
But you see that's what makes it interesting, the thrill of letting out a roaring battle shout that just rallys up all your troops encouraging them to fight till they can't no more, the upheavel of raging waves of soldier rushing to dominate the overlord. That's the perfect place to create the "story", the HISTORY.
FREEDOM FOR THE PLAYERS ON ANY POSSIBLE ASPECTS OF DESIGN DECISION.
First and foremost, Freedom to cause effects over others and over the game world.
Freedom to no be limited by balance.
Freedom to engage others in combat, even if its a mistake.
Freedom for making mistakes.
Freedom for being held accountable for said mistakes.
Freedom to seek justice on whoever is accountable for mistakes.
Freedom for making whatever type of character they can think of without any boundaries of classes/levels.
Freedom to evolve my character in any way I want.
Freedom to crash or inflate the game economy.
Freedom to let random numbers generators go crazy.
Freedom to customize everything in my game.
Freedom to to own anything on my account and do whatever I want with it.
Freedom to go/do wherever I want too and feel the consequences.
Freedom to not understand the game mechanics.
Freedom to not be held by the hand.
Freedom to not be forced to follow any kind of linear script.
Freedom to assembly three hundred players in the same screen. YEAH.
Freedom to not be forced to save the princess or slay the dragon, but rape the princess and marry the dragon.
Freedom of choice.
Any kind of freedom that nowadays games are lacking.
Too much artificial developers design decisions limiting my freedom. It feels like being in a prison, being treated like a criminal, todays mmorpgs.
We need to start a discussion on the rich subject freedom.
Atleast to enlighten these new players of key structural design elements that got de-evolved over the years. "Press space to beat the game. "
I completely agree, and have made similar posts in years past. Many MMORPGS these days are lacking player freedom. I disagree with those that think that " freedom" should be limited to SPRPGs. There ARE games that have more freedom in many areas but are lacking in polish and need much work to make them successful. From my understanding, when the developers spend all their money on new graphix engines creating competing graphix, they do not seem to be able to fund the content as much as would be required to deliver a quality content enriched game.
These days people seem to think that customization means being able to change their items different colors rather than determine the weapons stats. Game customization became more like that old barbie head girls used to play with when we were kids. Like you get this barbie head, and you can change her makeup, hair color, jewlery- but really the thing can do no more than it could when you started. They focused on cosmetic rather than ability.
There are games where quests are optional. There are games where you can access all game content on one character. There are games that allow players to determine their weapon stats. There are games where you can mage in range armor, melee in mages robes and range in warrior gear. These do exist, but are not as polished as they should be, and do not have all this content in one game. There are games that have zones for different activities, yet you can still do all activities on one server. There are games where you can hop servers at will with your character. There are games where you can craft a great variety of items in the game.
The difference between these games and the others is kinda like the difference between an underground band that is playing out of their garage with crappy equipment and a " boy band". The mainstream companies support the boy bands and give them tons of cash even if they have no talent just to sell their products. It is easy money for them, wheras the more controversial metal band playing in the garage that may be insanely skilled musicians cannot get that kind of support simply because they do not follow the guidelines set by the mainstream.
What needs to happen is a major developer takes all the good from these games, changing the bad, and combine them into one content enriched game and it would be awesome.
Those who enjoy the linear, tell me what to do games can still play them, there are plenty for you to choose from out there, it just would be nice to have one for the rest of us.
IS asking for one polished , content enriched , quality mmorpg with player freedom really too much to ask? Why would it bother those who oppose player freedom that much if we actually received one? Why is freedom so offensive to some people?
FREEDOM FOR THE PLAYERS ON ANY POSSIBLE ASPECTS OF DESIGN DECISION.
First and foremost, Freedom to cause effects over others and over the game world.
Freedom to no be limited by balance.
Freedom to engage others in combat, even if its a mistake.
Freedom for making mistakes.
Freedom for being held accountable for said mistakes.
Freedom to seek justice on whoever is accountable for mistakes.
Freedom for making whatever type of character they can think of without any boundaries of classes/levels.
Freedom to evolve my character in any way I want.
Freedom to crash or inflate the game economy.
Freedom to let random numbers generators go crazy.
Freedom to customize everything in my game.
Freedom to to own anything on my account and do whatever I want with it.
Freedom to go/do wherever I want too and feel the consequences.
Freedom to not understand the game mechanics.
Freedom to not be held by the hand.
Freedom to not be forced to follow any kind of linear script.
Freedom to assembly three hundred players in the same screen. YEAH.
Freedom to not be forced to save the princess or slay the dragon, but rape the princess and marry the dragon.
Freedom of choice.
Any kind of freedom that nowadays games are lacking.
Too much artificial developers design decisions limiting my freedom. It feels like being in a prison, being treated like a criminal, todays mmorpgs.
We need to start a discussion on the rich subject freedom.
Atleast to enlighten these new players of key structural design elements that got de-evolved over the years. "Press space to beat the game. "
I completely agree, and have made similar posts in years past. Many MMORPGS these days are lacking player freedom. I disagree with those that think that " freedom" should be limited to SPRPGs. There ARE games that have more freedom in many areas but are lacking in polish and need much work to make them successful. From my understanding, when the developers spend all their money on new graphix engines creating competing graphix, they do not seem to be able to fund the content as much as would be required to deliver a quality content enriched game.
These days people seem to think that customization means being able to change their items different colors rather than determine the weapons stats. Game customization became more like that old barbie head girls used to play with when we were kids. Like you get this barbie head, and you can change her makeup, hair color, jewlery- but really the thing can do no more than it could when you started. They focused on cosmetic rather than ability.
There are games where quests are optional. There are games where you can access all game content on one character. There are games that allow players to determine their weapon stats. There are games where you can mage in range armor, melee in mages robes and range in warrior gear. These do exist, but are not as polished as they should be, and do not have all this content in one game. There are games that have zones for different activities, yet you can still do all activities on one server. There are games where you can hop servers at will with your character. There are games where you can craft a great variety of items in the game.
The difference between these games and the others is kinda like the difference between an underground band that is playing out of their garage with crappy equipment and a " boy band". The mainstream companies support the boy bands and give them tons of cash even if they have no talent just to sell their products. It is easy money for them, wheras the more controversial metal band playing in the garage that may be insanely skilled musicians cannot get that kind of support simply because they do not follow the guidelines set by the mainstream.
What needs to happen is a major developer takes all the good from these games, changing the bad, and combine them into one content enriched game and it would be awesome.
Those who enjoy the linear, tell me what to do games can still play them, there are plenty for you to choose from out there, it just would be nice to have one for the rest of us.
IS asking for one polished , content enriched , quality mmorpg with player freedom really too much to ask? Why would it bother those who oppose player freedom that much if we actually received one? Why is freedom so offensive to some people?
100% completely agree, I'm just bad at stating that point, haha. I think some people are just afraid of a little chaos, and are too lazy to bring their own order to it.
DesolateWolf, your points are rather sound when describing a single-player game. If you put it in the context of a multiplayer game, you start to see how that all falls apart.
Can I steal your car? Can I kill you on your way to your car? What if I run over you with my car? See, you'd like to 'escape reality' and go speeding through red lights in your virtual car, but you aren't taking into consideration that others have the same freedoms as you. After multiple failed attempts to even get to your car to go speeding, you'd probably get rather frustrated with the amount of 'freedom' in the game.
This is easily solved by zoning. All you have to do is have different areas on a map designated for certain activities. different zones different rules, that way all those wishing to risk being stolen from, and wish to steal from others can be in the same area. It is possible to have many activities for different types of players on one server and you can go between activities at will. You can have a balance between freedom and fun easily on one server. This has already been done in MMORPGS with many actitivies, minigames, map zoning and such allow for much more content on any game world.
Well after reading all of this posts I can say without a doubt that there is no way in hell I would pay for the type of game that the OP is describing. I would love and updated UO as I would like some of the freedoms but the game the OP is describing does not sound like fun at all and instead sounds more like a second job that I would be paying to play.
I think I am not the miniority in this and that is exactly why you will not see a developer try to make this kind of game. I do think there can be more freedom given in MMORPGs but total freedom is not only not realistic but will not be fun for the majority of players.
DesolateWolf, your points are rather sound when describing a single-player game. If you put it in the context of a multiplayer game, you start to see how that all falls apart.
Can I steal your car? Can I kill you on your way to your car? What if I run over you with my car? See, you'd like to 'escape reality' and go speeding through red lights in your virtual car, but you aren't taking into consideration that others have the same freedoms as you. After multiple failed attempts to even get to your car to go speeding, you'd probably get rather frustrated with the amount of 'freedom' in the game.
This is easily solved by zoning. All you have to do is have different areas on a map designated for certain activities. different zones different rules, that way all those wishing to risk being stolen from, and wish to steal from others can be in the same area. It is possible to have many activities for different types of players on one server and you can go between activities at will. You can have a balance between freedom and fun easily on one server. This has already been done in MMORPGS with many actitivies, minigames, map zoning and such allow for much more content on any game world.
but what if i want the freedom to rob people in elfghanistan when elfghanistan is a robbing free zone?? does that not cut my freedom to pieces?? sry... had to do it...
i think i know what you guys really want... a time machine to go back to a time when your favourite MMO was still fresh and exciting/not dead/ not horribly disfigure-patched...
but if you think back to that game you should see that the freedoms weren't that many either... or well... at least they all had their rules and restrictions, too... for good reason i might add. an MMO consists at it's base of systems (crafting, questing, pvp, PK, exp, skills, etc) those systems are basically restrictions and boundaries as well as opportunities. good systems are those that the majority just takes for granted and eventually doesn't notice anymore... bad systems are those that constantly annoy you but you feel you still have to use them for whatever reason... basically what you guys want is to replace all these systems with one giant freedom system that lets you do anything and that will also calculate remifications and consequences... right?
then i ask you, why? what for? to have the ability to glue 2 raisins and a hazelnut to your forehead with saliva just because you think it's a good idea? well ok... but why not do that in real life then? why do you need a game world to do all this nonsense you could easily achieve by getting out of your seat and just doing it... I think it's because that's not really what you or the OP want... it's been stated many times in this thread by "supporters" that this is not about ganking or griefing or anything like that, because all that stuff should have player crafted ramifications and consequences or somesuch... so basically if it's something that does not upset, bother or in any way negatively affect others you could just as well do it in real life... so the only reason that remains is that you do want it for griefing etc...
also what you are dreaming about here is impossible to achieve.... even if some developer geniuses worked their entire lifetime on a game like that they would not be able to account for that one weird guy who always wanted to smear a penis on the wall with egg white and sprinkle it with chopped mushrooms... and even if they achieved it.... come on... just take a good look at your average MMO and it doesn't even have to be a newer one... there's always people who figure out ways to cheat the game or exploit stuff and they use it only to grief others... it's a utopean idea...
to your first post evil - that whole thing about wanting to mash the best things about these games together sounds like a fat kid trying to put together the best things from his 10 favorite meals ending up with chocolate covered fried potatoes with custard and ketchup... just because they're good systems in those game doesn't mean they'd work well together...
and to finish off my monologue i want to give you an example about the magnitudes of freedom... i was playing this skill based MMO and i thought: ok well I'm just gonna rebuild that Warhammer PnP character that I'd been playing for 5 years... only to find out that a dual wielding battlemage was not possible because magic prevented the use of martial arts which was required for useful dual wielding... everybody else didn't really have a problem with it because it was in essence a good system ( refer to 2nd paragraph) it just prevented me from doing what i wanted... skillbased systems are inherently flawed and are also just an illusion of freedom... if they weren't everybody would just take everything...
<S.T.E.A.L.T.H> An Agency that kicks so much ass it has to be written in all capital letters... divided by dots! www.stealth-industries.de
Freedom to assembly three hundred players in the same screen. YEAH. Freedom of 2d games, really poor graphics, or magic low ping connections
I laughed at just about every one of your "rebuttals" but the one that took the cake was saying that the only way to get 300 people on screen is to have 2D graphics.
That's just sad, that MMOs have fallen so far, that such a simple goal seems like an impossibility to the simple minded like you.
You realize that Dark Age of Camelot, a game from 2001 that had state of the art graphics of its time, regularly had 400+ people on the screen in large battles?
And I didn't know that freedom was something only pretentious people liked. I'm sorry, but wanting to think/struggle a little in a game does not make one pretentious.
You absolutely disgust me.
I can't believe you would try to argue that, when "state of the art in it's time" is "really poor graphics" now. Every one of his points is sound, and you need to be hit with a rolled-up newspaper for being dense. Try fitting 300 people into a small space within a modern game and see what happens. anyone remembering the event in TR where the server blew up will tell you that it's impossible without the "state of the art graphics" from 1999. Idiot.
First off, you missed the point entirely. Just goes to show, the type of people that defend dumbed down games are usually dumb themselves. I said that, in 2001 (not 1999, wtf) there was a game (Dark Age of Camelot) that allowed you the freedom to bring as many people together as you wanted. The largest battle on my low pop server that I remember was a 250 vs 200 vs 350 man battle, and guess what, the server held and the battle is one of the most memorable MMORPG experiences of my 12 years of playing. If it was possible to have 500+ people fighting with the extremely limited tech of 2001 (30 man dev team, mostly dial up connections, and the graphics of the game were REALLY demanding at the time) then there is absolutely no reason it should be impossible today.
This doesn't even take into account how many more actions are logged in modern games, compared to "state of the art 10 years ago" crap.
Really? Because almost all modern MMOs give characters far less abilities, and have slower simpler combat than in Dark Age of Camelot.
Here's an example of the graphics in the "1999 crap" game, this is from 2003, this game could handle 500+ people fighting with siege towers, battering rams, boiling oil, trebuchets, bows, crossbows, magic, and every melee weapon imaginable.
If a small dev team could do that back in 2001, then the 200+ dev team of Blizzard should have figured out a way to do it now, especially considering its graphics are far FAR less complicated than Dark Age of Camelot's.
Originally posted by khanstruct
300+ characters on the screen at one time is... not likely.
Wrong. Multiple MMORPGs have done it, see above. Dark Age of Camelot did it. Darkfall currently does it, and Darkfall's combat system is far more complicated than anything else on the market. AAA MMO devs are just lazy and uninspired, that's why they rely on instancing so much, and keep getting WoW clones.
1. MMORPGS today are like that cook on Ramsay's kitchen nightmares that was so lazy he would not even cook himself real food, instead he like ate butter sandwiches. Some of you may be content eating butter sandwiches, but some of us want more, we want a properly seasoned, properly cooked steak.
2. Of course you cannot have complete freedom in a programed world, but you can have many freedoms that are currently restricted due to laziness.
3. The reason for freedom would be for fun, entertainment, and a fulfilling game experience. Which many mmorpgs these days are greatly lacking. They feel more like a dress up like princess barbie game rather than an an mmorpg.
4. With proper zoning you can balance freedom, activities and suit a variety of play styles in one game without having to play 50 games to achieve that.
5. You are stuck on the notion that class based is a good thing and that predetermined strengths and weaknesses are necessary when games that have existed for quite some time do not follow that path at all, and are completely uneccessary. The entire concept of " looks like an elf, know elfs strengths and weaknesses, counter elf" boring combat play is even remotely challenging is beyond me. I would rather character appearance have nothing to do with ability in game giving the game entirely new level of camoflauge and actualy reacting in battle rather than just go through the motions. Not know what a player was capable of or was going to do next in battle making it a real fight rather than the same ol' same ol lame ass BS we currently have in new mmos.
6. Just because you have not yet experienced something is no reason to claim it impossible. It is far from impossible, as many of these things have already been done in different mmos, and saying that combining them would be a mess is completely unfounded. You may like you steak bland, but I prefer a good seasoned steak. Your bland game is boring to me, I want one with more spice.
Some good examples of things that should be taken from past games:
*Wilderness Zoning on old Runescape. It had single player combat zones that inceased in level as you went farther out. Multiplayer combat zones that also increased in level farther you went out where you could have a thousand people fighting all at once if you really wanted to. Hundreds of people fighting at once was common.
*Socketing of items like Diablo where you added stones to change bonuses of weapons and armor.
* salvaging of armor like guild wars
*Non class based system like runescape, but with guild wars pvp mechanics.
these are just a few things that could be taken and made better and combined into one game to make a great game rather than creating a bunch of mediocre games.
Think out side of the box, and not just about mashing things on your skull silly.
I understand your point, I may have left out a couple of details, I tend to do that and I apologize. But just like in real life we would be punished for such actions by the authorities, so should we in the virtual world, creating "some bounderies" to the game, and not just let chaos roam free and destroy the game itself. So now, here is where we split the good and the bad, the classic "clash" some of you have been discussing between good and evil. Some of you want to help the police and stop that car jacker, and some of you want to help him escape. (keep in mind this has now turned as a cops and robbers situation, but I'm only using it as an outline) what you were telling me was that this might get annoying as maybe one side becomes stronger and over rules the other.
But you see that's what makes it interesting, the thrill of letting out a roaring battle shout that just rallys up all your troops encouraging them to fight till they can't no more, the upheavel of raging waves of soldier rushing to dominate the overlord. That's the perfect place to create the "story", the HISTORY.
I would like to hear any further opinion.
I did not mean to state or imply anything of sides or 'cops and robbers'. If players want to do an activity in game, they often are annoyed or frustrated by other players preventing them from doing so especially when the activity they wish to do is something they perceive as a PvE activity or one they should be able to engage in unimpeded by other players.
At a technical level, this is why collision detection is often avoided.
At a game design level, this is why PvE and PvP are either kept in separate areas of the world or on separate servers altogether.
It's not about good vs evil or cops vs robbers. It's about how people play online games.
World of Warcraft - AH fires and /roll were excellent indicators of how players are no longer free to do various acts thanks to the bottom of the gene pool (on both sides of both scenarios).
Pirates of the Burning Sea - Ask a PvE player what they think of red circles around the town they are in.
There's plenty more examples but those few cover enough of a spectrum of the 'freedom' issue. What you consider 'interesting' and 'a thrill' is what millions and millions of gamers consider annoying and a negative experience.
Look, I'm not against freedom to interact, affect the game world and impact the lives of fellow players and their characters. That kind of stuff is an intrinsic part of my work and my gaming. However, 'freedom' as the OP describes would appeal to about the smallest possible subset of MMO gamers, most of whom would play the MMO solely to try to make life miserable for the other couple dozen players in the game's populace.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
to have the ability to glue 2 raisins and a hazelnut to your forehead
with egg white and sprinkle it with chopped mushrooms...
ending up with chocolate covered fried potatoes with custard and ketchup...
Someone is either a chef or very hungry.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Freedom to assembly three hundred players in the same screen. YEAH. Freedom of 2d games, really poor graphics, or magic low ping connections
I laughed at just about every one of your "rebuttals" but the one that took the cake was saying that the only way to get 300 people on screen is to have 2D graphics.
That's just sad, that MMOs have fallen so far, that such a simple goal seems like an impossibility to the simple minded like you.
You realize that Dark Age of Camelot, a game from 2001 that had state of the art graphics of its time, regularly had 400+ people on the screen in large battles?
And I didn't know that freedom was something only pretentious people liked. I'm sorry, but wanting to think/struggle a little in a game does not make one pretentious.
You absolutely disgust me.
I can't believe you would try to argue that, when "state of the art in it's time" is "really poor graphics" now. Every one of his points is sound, and you need to be hit with a rolled-up newspaper for being dense. Try fitting 300 people into a small space within a modern game and see what happens. anyone remembering the event in TR where the server blew up will tell you that it's impossible without the "state of the art graphics" from 1999. Idiot.
First off, you missed the point entirely. Just goes to show, the type of people that defend dumbed down games are usually dumb themselves. I said that, in 2001 (not 1999, wtf) there was a game (Dark Age of Camelot) that allowed you the freedom to bring as many people together as you wanted. The largest battle on my low pop server that I remember was a 250 vs 200 vs 350 man battle, and guess what, the server held and the battle is one of the most memorable MMORPG experiences of my 12 years of playing. If it was possible to have 500+ people fighting with the extremely limited tech of 2001 (30 man dev team, mostly dial up connections, and the graphics of the game were REALLY demanding at the time) then there is absolutely no reason it should be impossible today.
This doesn't even take into account how many more actions are logged in modern games, compared to "state of the art 10 years ago" crap.
Really? Because almost all modern MMOs give characters far less abilities, and have slower simpler combat than in Dark Age of Camelot.
Here's an example of the graphics in the "1999 crap" game, this is from 2003, this game could handle 500+ people fighting with siege towers, battering rams, boiling oil, trebuchets, bows, crossbows, magic, and every melee weapon imaginable.
If a small dev team could do that back in 2001, then the 200+ dev team of Blizzard should have figured out a way to do it now, especially considering its graphics are far FAR less complicated than Dark Age of Camelot's.
Originally posted by khanstruct
300+ characters on the screen at one time is... not likely.
Wrong. Multiple MMORPGs have done it, see above. Dark Age of Camelot did it. Darkfall currently does it, and Darkfall's combat system is far more complicated than anything else on the market. AAA MMO devs are just lazy and uninspired, that's why they rely on instancing so much, and keep getting WoW clones.
DAoC is a great example of how siege warfare should be done. It amazes me that people can even be content with the poo on a platter they serve up these days they try to call " pvp" combat. I guess if they have never tasted anything better they have not been able to develop a taste for it yet.
Say there's this NPC who drives a wagon from one town to the next.
.
I wan't to rob him so I chop down a tree to block the road.
.
Simple right?
.
What MMO will give me the freedom to do this?
.
None, really, unless you know of an MMO that wants to deal with every jackass and his brother covering the roads with trees.
Lofty philosophical and social babble aside, that scenario simply needs to be examined by its core components - collision detection and the placement of objects in the game world.
From a design standpoint, the issue isn't tech or mechanics. The issue how badly and how often the small number of douchebags in your community will ruin the game for everyone with the tech or mechanic.
This, and only this.
I can even use actual examples from a game that at one time had plenty of freedom built in, SWG. Which had placeable objects that could be used in the wrong manner (to grief). Terminals as an example could be placed in front of doors, blocking players inside.
Another occurance (im not sure how often this actually happened). The incident was known as the Rayen petting zoo on my server. In short a player was rezzed while 4 players sat terminals around him trapping him in place. Of course these players were banned, so was the player who was trapped if I recall correctly.
This is why we most likely will never see freedom in the scale the OP is calling for. While it would be great if it would work, it wouldn't be long before people started abusing those freedoms. I really can't see it turning out any other way.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Say there's this NPC who drives a wagon from one town to the next.
.
I wan't to rob him so I chop down a tree to block the road.
.
Simple right?
.
What MMO will give me the freedom to do this?
.
None, really, unless you know of an MMO that wants to deal with every jackass and his brother covering the roads with trees.
Lofty philosophical and social babble aside, that scenario simply needs to be examined by its core components - collision detection and the placement of objects in the game world.
From a design standpoint, the issue isn't tech or mechanics. The issue how badly and how often the small number of douchebags in your community will ruin the game for everyone with the tech or mechanic.
This, and only this.
I can even use actual examples from a game that at one time had plenty of freedom built in, SWG. Which had placeable objects that could be used in the wrong manner (to grief). Terminals as an example could be placed in front of doors, blocking players inside.
Another occurance (im not sure how often this actually happened). The incident was known as the Rayen petting zoo on my server. In short a player was rezzed while 4 players sat terminals around him trapping him in place. Of course these players were banned, so was the player who was trapped if I recall correctly.
This is why we most likely will never see freedom in the scale the OP is calling for. While it would be great if it would work, it wouldn't be long before people started abusing those freedoms. I really can't see it turning out any other way.
Of course you can't have absolute freedom, but with map zoning, and the ability to server hop at will, the trapped player could easily escape.
It can be done to a certain extent, but it is all about implementation. I love obstacle usage in games.. countless hours of amusement... I am so easily amused.
No, I mean it. Look at the replies to this thread - it's amazing* how people have been conditioned to associate freedom with abuse. Virtually every post here has made the explicit assumption that the only thing that anyone wants with freedom is the ability to harm others. It's literally all you can think of to do with it.
MMOs are far from the only venue where one can see this notion, I can tell you for a fact, attitudes in our society have changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
I completely agree, and have made similar posts in years past. Many MMORPGS these days are lacking player freedom. I disagree with those that think that " freedom" should be limited to SPRPGs. There ARE games that have more freedom in many areas but are lacking in polish and need much work to make them successful. From my understanding, when the developers spend all their money on new graphix engines creating competing graphix, they do not seem to be able to fund the content as much as would be required to deliver a quality content enriched game.
These days people seem to think that customization means being able to change their items different colors rather than determine the weapons stats. Game customization became more like that old barbie head girls used to play with when we were kids. Like you get this barbie head, and you can change her makeup, hair color, jewlery- but really the thing can do no more than it could when you started. They focused on cosmetic rather than ability.
There are games where quests are optional. There are games where you can access all game content on one character. There are games that allow players to determine their weapon stats. There are games where you can mage in range armor, melee in mages robes and range in warrior gear. These do exist, but are not as polished as they should be, and do not have all this content in one game. There are games that have zones for different activities, yet you can still do all activities on one server. There are games where you can hop servers at will with your character. There are games where you can craft a great variety of items in the game.
The difference between these games and the others is kinda like the difference between an underground band that is playing out of their garage with crappy equipment and a " boy band". The mainstream companies support the boy bands and give them tons of cash even if they have no talent just to sell their products. It is easy money for them, wheras the more controversial metal band playing in the garage that may be insanely skilled musicians cannot get that kind of support simply because they do not follow the guidelines set by the mainstream.
What needs to happen is a major developer takes all the good from these games, changing the bad, and combine them into one content enriched game and it would be awesome.
Those who enjoy the linear, tell me what to do games can still play them, there are plenty for you to choose from out there, it just would be nice to have one for the rest of us.
IS asking for one polished , content enriched , quality mmorpg with player freedom really too much to ask? Why would it bother those who oppose player freedom that much if we actually received one? Why is freedom so offensive to some people?
The reason why nobody is making 'polished, content rich quality mmorpgs with player freedom' is because the market for them is not that big. It's like a fan of 'Brokeback Mountain' demanding that Disney put a romantic subplot between Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp into the next 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie. Nobody is going to give the garage metal band in your example a multi-million dollar recording contract, set them up in a studio with a top producer and then send them on a stadium tour because they won't sell enough tickets to be profitable. And if they do change their style in some ways to be more acceptable to a mainstream audience, their 'hardcore' fans will cry over them 'selling out'.
That being said, I have no problem if a major game developer decides to make a game like this. My problem is with the droves of people who show up on the pre-launch forums of every game that comes out demanding that the game developers change their design decisions to accomodate them.
No, I mean it. Look at the replies to this thread - it's amazing* how people have been conditioned to associate freedom with abuse. Virtually every post here has made the explicit assumption that the only thing that anyone wants with freedom is the ability to harm others. It's literally all you can think of to do with it.
MMOs are far from the only venue where one can see this notion, I can tell you for a fact, attitudes in our society have changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
*And by "amazing" I mean "appalling".
Thats because we aren't idealists. While i would not use freedom solely for abusing i'm pretty sure a lot would.
What has conditioned us is the gaming experience we have had .
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt. Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
DesolateWolf, your points are rather sound when describing a single-player game. If you put it in the context of a multiplayer game, you start to see how that all falls apart.
Can I steal your car? Can I kill you on your way to your car? What if I run over you with my car? See, you'd like to 'escape reality' and go speeding through red lights in your virtual car, but you aren't taking into consideration that others have the same freedoms as you. After multiple failed attempts to even get to your car to go speeding, you'd probably get rather frustrated with the amount of 'freedom' in the game.
This is easily solved by zoning. All you have to do is have different areas on a map designated for certain activities. different zones different rules, that way all those wishing to risk being stolen from, and wish to steal from others can be in the same area. It is possible to have many activities for different types of players on one server and you can go between activities at will. You can have a balance between freedom and fun easily on one server. This has already been done in MMORPGS with many actitivies, minigames, map zoning and such allow for much more content on any game world.
No, this isn't easily solved by zoning. To go by the park metaphor that I used earlier, people like the OP aren't asking for the freedom to play paintball in designated paintball areas in the park. They're not asking for the freedom to play paintball against other paintballers anywhere in the park. They're asking for the freedom to play paintball everywhere against anybody they want. Want to go fishing? Better be ready to play paintball instead. Want to go have a picnic? Better pack your paintball guns in the picnic basket. Want to sit on a bench and read a book? You guessed it...paintball!
But..but...there will be 'good' paintballers who will protect people who want to do other things. There will be paintball guilds that will establish ownership over the fishing pond and if you just want to fish all you have to do is ask for their permission or pay whatever fee they designate and they will let you fish while fending off all the other paintballers! Unless they get bored, and decide to shoot you themselves just 'for the lulz'. But hey, you can always build your own paintball army and take over the pond yourself! Isn't paintball more fun than boring fishing anyway?
No thanks. I'll just go to the other park in town that gives me the freedom to fish whenever I want.
No, I mean it. Look at the replies to this thread - it's amazing* how people have been conditioned to associate freedom with abuse. Virtually every post here has made the explicit assumption that the only thing that anyone wants with freedom is the ability to harm others. It's literally all you can think of to do with it.
MMOs are far from the only venue where one can see this notion, I can tell you for a fact, attitudes in our society have changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
*And by "amazing" I mean "appalling".
When you look at the things the OP says he wants to do, are you surprised that people assume he means to abuse the freedom he is asking for? Basically he says he doesn't want game developers protecting other players from him doing whatever he wants to do to them. I certainly don't think that anyone who wants freedom is only looking to abuse other players, but it's awfully naive to assume that nobody will. And allowing that changes a game from one thing to something else entirely. The whole game revolves around the meta-game of 'good players vs. bad players'. This is a lot of fun for the people who want to play 'cops and robbers', but nobody has figured out a way to make it equally enjoyable for the people who just want to play regular citizens.
It's fun for a robber to rob a liquor store. It's fun for a cop to chase the robber who just robbed the liquor store. Now how do we make it fun to operate a liquor store that gets robbed on a regular basis?
Say there's this NPC who drives a wagon from one town to the next.
.
I wan't to rob him so I chop down a tree to block the road.
.
Simple right?
.
What MMO will give me the freedom to do this?
.
None, really, unless you know of an MMO that wants to deal with every jackass and his brother covering the roads with trees.
Lofty philosophical and social babble aside, that scenario simply needs to be examined by its core components - collision detection and the placement of objects in the game world.
From a design standpoint, the issue isn't tech or mechanics. The issue how badly and how often the small number of douchebags in your community will ruin the game for everyone with the tech or mechanic.
This, and only this.
I can even use actual examples from a game that at one time had plenty of freedom built in, SWG. Which had placeable objects that could be used in the wrong manner (to grief). Terminals as an example could be placed in front of doors, blocking players inside.
Another occurance (im not sure how often this actually happened). The incident was known as the Rayen petting zoo on my server. In short a player was rezzed while 4 players sat terminals around him trapping him in place. Of course these players were banned, so was the player who was trapped if I recall correctly.
This is why we most likely will never see freedom in the scale the OP is calling for. While it would be great if it would work, it wouldn't be long before people started abusing those freedoms. I really can't see it turning out any other way.
Wurm Online has the most freedom I've seen in a game, and because of it, 4chan will regularly host an event to invade the game and ruin it for everyone else. It has a free trial server now in order to divert that negative attention away, instead of a 'basic' account that let them into the regular servers to cause havok. When you have a game that lets you build anything anywhere, and change the world you your liking, there will always be someone who wants to block people in with fences and tear down forests to raise up gravel pits. Then the regular players have the "fun" in fixing it all once the griefers get bored with it.
Freedom to one person is abuse to the next, re-gard-o-less. There's plenty of non-4channers in that game who take delight in moving next to an established village in order to poach their resources and muck up their work. Happens all the time, and why?
~because if it can go wrong, it will, and it only takes one person to ruin the day of 100 others.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
No, I mean it. Look at the replies to this thread - it's amazing* how people have been conditioned to associate freedom with abuse. Virtually every post here has made the explicit assumption that the only thing that anyone wants with freedom is the ability to harm others. It's literally all you can think of to do with it.
MMOs are far from the only venue where one can see this notion, I can tell you for a fact, attitudes in our society have changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
*And by "amazing" I mean "appalling".
Making people think speed up the evolution process.
Over the years we had an extreme reaction from developers to players abusing their freedoms. Instead of working around the problem with solutions, they stripped the genre of its social essence, by treating players like potential criminals. Our games are virtual prisons. Every rule is imposed by design to prevent the early problems.
They took the shortcut. People kill each other, this is bad. Forbid them from attacking each other. Just like that, all their creative minds could come up with.
People are not using a certain content. Force them to use said content by linearly implementing a way to force them to follow the script.
Creating artificial pre-requisites, like "levels" and using those to garantee that players would be doing what the developers planned them to do.
Everything balanced around the clock. No gaps. Every kind of activity the player can do had to be scripted by the developer up front. This lead them to ultimatelly limit dozens of other activities, such as exploring. Now you dont explore at your own pace, when you want, where you want. Now you follow the developers path. You cant move away from said script, because the design will prevent you from entering an area, because you have not done the pre-required scripted content, you dont have the freedom to get in an area where you could die. Because dieing is bad, so they removed the ability of the player to be free, free to fuck himself up. By doing that, they made everyone's experience, the same.
Every possibility of interaction that could remotelly or partially go wrong, got removed. We cant do anything anymore.
Just run, use skills, click on the npcs, use items and thats it. Even what we can do, when we can do, where we can do GOT STRIPPED FROM US.
THEY EVEN STRIPPED FROM US THE ABILITY TO HAVE A UNIQUE GAME EXPERIENCE. Now if a game has a thousand players, every single one of those thousand players will have to DO THE SAME QUESTS, AT THE SAME LEVELS, SAME AREAS, WITH SIMILAR EQUIPMENT, UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS, WITH THE SAME RESULTS.
Nothing actually matters anymore. No wonder people complain about the lack of journey, the ammount of grind and the rush for the end game. In these games, END GAME is the only ressemblance of freedom we still have.
This way of solving problems. There is a tool that is essentially neutral, it can be used for good 90% of the time, but if it can be used 10% of the time for evil. OH MY FUCKING GOD, LETS REMOVE THE TOOL ALTOGETHER!!!
Are they really that stupid? Yes, they are. Are we that stupid to think that our freedom has to be limited and we have to behave like sheep and accept that, just because one guy found a negative way to use said freedom? Will we completelly strip said freedom 100%, without even trying to find a solution for the specific exceptional situation? "Oh, too much thinking, remove it, easier, cheaper, faster, the players dont care"
They repeat said process so much over the years... and look where we are right now! Look at the point we got. One player cant even jump, because he will jump on an object and use said object to prevent getting hit by monsters. BAD! REMOVE JUMP!
Do I have to keep citing these ridiculous examples of bad design to rape it into peoples brain?
There is a bad video on youtube? Ban the youtube. Russia did this recently.
There is a problem with the Internet infinite content. Introduce the Great Firewall of China.
People are using torrent indexers as tools to get their torrent pirated stuff, close the torrent indexer websites.
This kind of approach, with disregard to the side effects to individual rights and freedoms. People have to make a stand. Stop accepting taking in their asses with todays MMORPGs design.
Instead of
WORKING THEIR ASSES ON A SOLUTION THEY GO AND TAKE THE EASIER/CHEAPER SOLUTION WITH THE WORSE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS.
This happens in all areas of society.
And then we have this limited mentality of players who cant see beyond their noses, THAT THINK THERE ISNT ANOTHER WAY.
There is a way around each and every freedom mentioned. We, the players have found the solutions ourselfs for all the mentioned situations and posted over and over on this forum. IF WE DID, AND WE DID OVER AND OVER. At some point we will reach our limit in accepting the crap that has being pushed to us.
Only ignorant fools repplied with the idea that freedom itself is inerently bad, with a short thought, pessimistic, one sided, blind sided view of it. They cant think ahead of their noses, they only see "gank", "grief". Dont even realize they can use their heads to find a creative solution.
Only ignorant fools repplied with the idea that freedom itself is inerently bad, with a short thought, pessimistic, one sided, blind sided view of it. They cant think ahead of their noses, they only see "gank", "grief". Dont even realize they can use their heads to find a creative solution.
I honestly think you've never even played a game with as much personal freedom as you clamor for. Do us all a favor and try to get settled in the free trial server of Wurm Online and tell us about your general experiences with the 'neighbors'. You will have some horror stories. This is mainly due to the fact that it's *free*, and that attracts jackasses with no regard for others because of there being no risk of losing any kind of investment put into it.
You can keep screaming about how we are all short-sighted as to the true meaning behind all of this, but the fact is that you refuse to see the obvious flaws in "total freedom". People abuse it, and that's all it takes to convince others to stay away. It's the very reason why FFA-sandboxes are so niche, people just don't like dealing with those kinds of players, and would rather leave them to their own devices and play something else. Developers want a successful product, not one that caters to a select crowd of people that can "take the heat". Because the heat will *always* be there, do not give mankind more credit than it deserves. We wouldn't need police, jails and other institutions if real society was as logical as you claim an online one could be.
Add anonymity to the mix, like you get with *any* online game, and you get the people that scream into the mic on counterstrike, just to piss you off, going further with it. Open your eyes to the facts at hand - it does happen - it will happen - and it's not going to change without specific rulesets to balance out that fact. Total freedom is overrated, that is, unless you secretly *are* the guy screaming into a mic on your spare time. Anyone with a basic experience with these kinds of game will tell you this, and have been throughout this entire thread. Your wishful thinking is not going to make people magically behave, limitations will.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Comments
Yes, player collision is a whole seperate beast that justifies its own thread. It requires a ton more planning.
It can be very useful in PvP, such as laying ambushes, blocking exits, etc. But this should ONLY be implemented if the game is designed for it. If its not a major pull to the game, its just too costly.
Wow, this thread is really on fire. I was just browsing around offline, but I just HAVE to take part in this. Call me a noob, call me a rebel, whatever you want, I don't care.
There are many ways you can go into this, because so many of you have discussed so many aspects on the subject. But my opinion on the initial topic, is well, yes, freedom is good. I think many of us misunderstand what definition of freedom we are talking about here. My definition of freedom, is to be able to craft our own story in an RPG and yes, some of our actions may bring consecuences, but that's the whole thrill about it.
Yes, maybe in real life such actions like speeding past a red light might cause a crash and most likely followed by death. But to me, that's the whole point of a videogame, to ESCAPE reality, my philosophy on games is that, all the developers and the whole team in it's entirity work together to IMAGINE something, form it into a DREAM, and sculpt that dream into our "REALITY". Think of it this way, our fast asleep in your bed, and your in the middle of a dream. All these big game companies and what not, are handing you the control to your dream, allowing you to do whatever you want.
Now, obviously there is a difference to theme park games and a sandbox game. In a theme park, the devs are giving you the scenery and a certain backstory for you to guide yourself in. A sandbox, just offers your the scenery, it's up to you what happens in it.
Now, I think what our friend here is trying to say is, that some games kinda do strip some of our freedoms. Like such games that make you follow a story line, and there really anything else to do but that. Now obviously everyone has their own opinion and they might even like games like that. But I really have to agree with the one line about "Making mistakes and having to deal with the domino effect later", the whole talk about balance really does make games feel kinda dull. So what if some overpowered player comes out of nowhere and woops your ass? your just gonna quit the game? I don't care who you are, I just see you as a wimp. Instead that should fill you with energy and momentum to take your character and spend countless hours buffing your character and finnaly wooping that guys ass, It feels rewarding.
Now another example I would like to include on my own account, is how linear some games can get. (I'm using WoW in my example since it's a very simple one to relate to) Games like WoW are a bit "free" but after spending days forming a group, or rallying your guild, and say spend countless hours and casualties raiding ICC, yeah it's rewarding throughout the way, but in the end, you finnaly down the Lich King.....now what? So that would be another example of my definition of freedom...
Umm, I hope I haven't left anything out. Excuse my horrible grammer skills. And hopefully you either agree or disagree in a civilized manner. So in conclusion, I say yes to freedom, complete freedom.
DesolateWolf, your points are rather sound when describing a single-player game. If you put it in the context of a multiplayer game, you start to see how that all falls apart.
Can I steal your car? Can I kill you on your way to your car? What if I run over you with my car? See, you'd like to 'escape reality' and go speeding through red lights in your virtual car, but you aren't taking into consideration that others have the same freedoms as you. After multiple failed attempts to even get to your car to go speeding, you'd probably get rather frustrated with the amount of 'freedom' in the game.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I understand your point, I may have left out a couple of details, I tend to do that and I apologize. But just like in real life we would be punished for such actions by the authorities, so should we in the virtual world, creating "some bounderies" to the game, and not just let chaos roam free and destroy the game itself. So now, here is where we split the good and the bad, the classic "clash" some of you have been discussing between good and evil. Some of you want to help the police and stop that car jacker, and some of you want to help him escape. (keep in mind this has now turned as a cops and robbers situation, but I'm only using it as an outline) what you were telling me was that this might get annoying as maybe one side becomes stronger and over rules the other.
But you see that's what makes it interesting, the thrill of letting out a roaring battle shout that just rallys up all your troops encouraging them to fight till they can't no more, the upheavel of raging waves of soldier rushing to dominate the overlord. That's the perfect place to create the "story", the HISTORY.
I would like to hear any further opinion.
I completely agree, and have made similar posts in years past. Many MMORPGS these days are lacking player freedom. I disagree with those that think that " freedom" should be limited to SPRPGs. There ARE games that have more freedom in many areas but are lacking in polish and need much work to make them successful. From my understanding, when the developers spend all their money on new graphix engines creating competing graphix, they do not seem to be able to fund the content as much as would be required to deliver a quality content enriched game.
These days people seem to think that customization means being able to change their items different colors rather than determine the weapons stats. Game customization became more like that old barbie head girls used to play with when we were kids. Like you get this barbie head, and you can change her makeup, hair color, jewlery- but really the thing can do no more than it could when you started. They focused on cosmetic rather than ability.
There are games where quests are optional. There are games where you can access all game content on one character. There are games that allow players to determine their weapon stats. There are games where you can mage in range armor, melee in mages robes and range in warrior gear. These do exist, but are not as polished as they should be, and do not have all this content in one game. There are games that have zones for different activities, yet you can still do all activities on one server. There are games where you can hop servers at will with your character. There are games where you can craft a great variety of items in the game.
The difference between these games and the others is kinda like the difference between an underground band that is playing out of their garage with crappy equipment and a " boy band". The mainstream companies support the boy bands and give them tons of cash even if they have no talent just to sell their products. It is easy money for them, wheras the more controversial metal band playing in the garage that may be insanely skilled musicians cannot get that kind of support simply because they do not follow the guidelines set by the mainstream.
What needs to happen is a major developer takes all the good from these games, changing the bad, and combine them into one content enriched game and it would be awesome.
Those who enjoy the linear, tell me what to do games can still play them, there are plenty for you to choose from out there, it just would be nice to have one for the rest of us.
IS asking for one polished , content enriched , quality mmorpg with player freedom really too much to ask? Why would it bother those who oppose player freedom that much if we actually received one? Why is freedom so offensive to some people?
100% completely agree, I'm just bad at stating that point, haha. I think some people are just afraid of a little chaos, and are too lazy to bring their own order to it.
This is easily solved by zoning. All you have to do is have different areas on a map designated for certain activities. different zones different rules, that way all those wishing to risk being stolen from, and wish to steal from others can be in the same area. It is possible to have many activities for different types of players on one server and you can go between activities at will. You can have a balance between freedom and fun easily on one server. This has already been done in MMORPGS with many actitivies, minigames, map zoning and such allow for much more content on any game world.
Well after reading all of this posts I can say without a doubt that there is no way in hell I would pay for the type of game that the OP is describing. I would love and updated UO as I would like some of the freedoms but the game the OP is describing does not sound like fun at all and instead sounds more like a second job that I would be paying to play.
I think I am not the miniority in this and that is exactly why you will not see a developer try to make this kind of game. I do think there can be more freedom given in MMORPGs but total freedom is not only not realistic but will not be fun for the majority of players.
but what if i want the freedom to rob people in elfghanistan when elfghanistan is a robbing free zone?? does that not cut my freedom to pieces?? sry... had to do it...
i think i know what you guys really want... a time machine to go back to a time when your favourite MMO was still fresh and exciting/not dead/ not horribly disfigure-patched...
but if you think back to that game you should see that the freedoms weren't that many either... or well... at least they all had their rules and restrictions, too... for good reason i might add. an MMO consists at it's base of systems (crafting, questing, pvp, PK, exp, skills, etc) those systems are basically restrictions and boundaries as well as opportunities. good systems are those that the majority just takes for granted and eventually doesn't notice anymore... bad systems are those that constantly annoy you but you feel you still have to use them for whatever reason... basically what you guys want is to replace all these systems with one giant freedom system that lets you do anything and that will also calculate remifications and consequences... right?
then i ask you, why? what for? to have the ability to glue 2 raisins and a hazelnut to your forehead with saliva just because you think it's a good idea? well ok... but why not do that in real life then? why do you need a game world to do all this nonsense you could easily achieve by getting out of your seat and just doing it... I think it's because that's not really what you or the OP want... it's been stated many times in this thread by "supporters" that this is not about ganking or griefing or anything like that, because all that stuff should have player crafted ramifications and consequences or somesuch... so basically if it's something that does not upset, bother or in any way negatively affect others you could just as well do it in real life... so the only reason that remains is that you do want it for griefing etc...
also what you are dreaming about here is impossible to achieve.... even if some developer geniuses worked their entire lifetime on a game like that they would not be able to account for that one weird guy who always wanted to smear a penis on the wall with egg white and sprinkle it with chopped mushrooms... and even if they achieved it.... come on... just take a good look at your average MMO and it doesn't even have to be a newer one... there's always people who figure out ways to cheat the game or exploit stuff and they use it only to grief others... it's a utopean idea...
to your first post evil - that whole thing about wanting to mash the best things about these games together sounds like a fat kid trying to put together the best things from his 10 favorite meals ending up with chocolate covered fried potatoes with custard and ketchup... just because they're good systems in those game doesn't mean they'd work well together...
and to finish off my monologue i want to give you an example about the magnitudes of freedom... i was playing this skill based MMO and i thought: ok well I'm just gonna rebuild that Warhammer PnP character that I'd been playing for 5 years... only to find out that a dual wielding battlemage was not possible because magic prevented the use of martial arts which was required for useful dual wielding... everybody else didn't really have a problem with it because it was in essence a good system ( refer to 2nd paragraph) it just prevented me from doing what i wanted... skillbased systems are inherently flawed and are also just an illusion of freedom... if they weren't everybody would just take everything...
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Wrong. Multiple MMORPGs have done it, see above. Dark Age of Camelot did it. Darkfall currently does it, and Darkfall's combat system is far more complicated than anything else on the market. AAA MMO devs are just lazy and uninspired, that's why they rely on instancing so much, and keep getting WoW clones.
You are wayy off base.
1. MMORPGS today are like that cook on Ramsay's kitchen nightmares that was so lazy he would not even cook himself real food, instead he like ate butter sandwiches. Some of you may be content eating butter sandwiches, but some of us want more, we want a properly seasoned, properly cooked steak.
2. Of course you cannot have complete freedom in a programed world, but you can have many freedoms that are currently restricted due to laziness.
3. The reason for freedom would be for fun, entertainment, and a fulfilling game experience. Which many mmorpgs these days are greatly lacking. They feel more like a dress up like princess barbie game rather than an an mmorpg.
4. With proper zoning you can balance freedom, activities and suit a variety of play styles in one game without having to play 50 games to achieve that.
5. You are stuck on the notion that class based is a good thing and that predetermined strengths and weaknesses are necessary when games that have existed for quite some time do not follow that path at all, and are completely uneccessary. The entire concept of " looks like an elf, know elfs strengths and weaknesses, counter elf" boring combat play is even remotely challenging is beyond me. I would rather character appearance have nothing to do with ability in game giving the game entirely new level of camoflauge and actualy reacting in battle rather than just go through the motions. Not know what a player was capable of or was going to do next in battle making it a real fight rather than the same ol' same ol lame ass BS we currently have in new mmos.
6. Just because you have not yet experienced something is no reason to claim it impossible. It is far from impossible, as many of these things have already been done in different mmos, and saying that combining them would be a mess is completely unfounded. You may like you steak bland, but I prefer a good seasoned steak. Your bland game is boring to me, I want one with more spice.
Some good examples of things that should be taken from past games:
*Wilderness Zoning on old Runescape. It had single player combat zones that inceased in level as you went farther out. Multiplayer combat zones that also increased in level farther you went out where you could have a thousand people fighting all at once if you really wanted to. Hundreds of people fighting at once was common.
*Socketing of items like Diablo where you added stones to change bonuses of weapons and armor.
* salvaging of armor like guild wars
*Non class based system like runescape, but with guild wars pvp mechanics.
these are just a few things that could be taken and made better and combined into one game to make a great game rather than creating a bunch of mediocre games.
Think out side of the box, and not just about mashing things on your skull silly.
I did not mean to state or imply anything of sides or 'cops and robbers'. If players want to do an activity in game, they often are annoyed or frustrated by other players preventing them from doing so especially when the activity they wish to do is something they perceive as a PvE activity or one they should be able to engage in unimpeded by other players.
At a technical level, this is why collision detection is often avoided.
At a game design level, this is why PvE and PvP are either kept in separate areas of the world or on separate servers altogether.
This is why housing is restricted to certain areas.
It is why dungeons get instanced.
It is why they make RP (often PvE-RP) servers.
It is why major events are rarely in PvP zones.
It's not about good vs evil or cops vs robbers. It's about how people play online games.
World of Warcraft - AH fires and /roll were excellent indicators of how players are no longer free to do various acts thanks to the bottom of the gene pool (on both sides of both scenarios).
Pirates of the Burning Sea - Ask a PvE player what they think of red circles around the town they are in.
There's plenty more examples but those few cover enough of a spectrum of the 'freedom' issue. What you consider 'interesting' and 'a thrill' is what millions and millions of gamers consider annoying and a negative experience.
Look, I'm not against freedom to interact, affect the game world and impact the lives of fellow players and their characters. That kind of stuff is an intrinsic part of my work and my gaming. However, 'freedom' as the OP describes would appeal to about the smallest possible subset of MMO gamers, most of whom would play the MMO solely to try to make life miserable for the other couple dozen players in the game's populace.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Someone is either a chef or very hungry.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
DAoC is a great example of how siege warfare should be done. It amazes me that people can even be content with the poo on a platter they serve up these days they try to call " pvp" combat. I guess if they have never tasted anything better they have not been able to develop a taste for it yet.
This, and only this.
I can even use actual examples from a game that at one time had plenty of freedom built in, SWG. Which had placeable objects that could be used in the wrong manner (to grief). Terminals as an example could be placed in front of doors, blocking players inside.
Another occurance (im not sure how often this actually happened). The incident was known as the Rayen petting zoo on my server. In short a player was rezzed while 4 players sat terminals around him trapping him in place. Of course these players were banned, so was the player who was trapped if I recall correctly.
This is why we most likely will never see freedom in the scale the OP is calling for. While it would be great if it would work, it wouldn't be long before people started abusing those freedoms. I really can't see it turning out any other way.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Of course you can't have absolute freedom, but with map zoning, and the ability to server hop at will, the trapped player could easily escape.
It can be done to a certain extent, but it is all about implementation. I love obstacle usage in games.. countless hours of amusement... I am so easily amused.
The freedom you want and speak of lies in the cash shop. Please visit and spend your moneys.
No, I mean it. Look at the replies to this thread - it's amazing* how people have been conditioned to associate freedom with abuse. Virtually every post here has made the explicit assumption that the only thing that anyone wants with freedom is the ability to harm others. It's literally all you can think of to do with it.
MMOs are far from the only venue where one can see this notion, I can tell you for a fact, attitudes in our society have changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
*And by "amazing" I mean "appalling".
Give me liberty or give me lasers
The reason why nobody is making 'polished, content rich quality mmorpgs with player freedom' is because the market for them is not that big. It's like a fan of 'Brokeback Mountain' demanding that Disney put a romantic subplot between Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp into the next 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie. Nobody is going to give the garage metal band in your example a multi-million dollar recording contract, set them up in a studio with a top producer and then send them on a stadium tour because they won't sell enough tickets to be profitable. And if they do change their style in some ways to be more acceptable to a mainstream audience, their 'hardcore' fans will cry over them 'selling out'.
That being said, I have no problem if a major game developer decides to make a game like this. My problem is with the droves of people who show up on the pre-launch forums of every game that comes out demanding that the game developers change their design decisions to accomodate them.
Thats because we aren't idealists. While i would not use freedom solely for abusing i'm pretty sure a lot would.
What has conditioned us is the gaming experience we have had .
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
No, this isn't easily solved by zoning. To go by the park metaphor that I used earlier, people like the OP aren't asking for the freedom to play paintball in designated paintball areas in the park. They're not asking for the freedom to play paintball against other paintballers anywhere in the park. They're asking for the freedom to play paintball everywhere against anybody they want. Want to go fishing? Better be ready to play paintball instead. Want to go have a picnic? Better pack your paintball guns in the picnic basket. Want to sit on a bench and read a book? You guessed it...paintball!
But..but...there will be 'good' paintballers who will protect people who want to do other things. There will be paintball guilds that will establish ownership over the fishing pond and if you just want to fish all you have to do is ask for their permission or pay whatever fee they designate and they will let you fish while fending off all the other paintballers! Unless they get bored, and decide to shoot you themselves just 'for the lulz'. But hey, you can always build your own paintball army and take over the pond yourself! Isn't paintball more fun than boring fishing anyway?
No thanks. I'll just go to the other park in town that gives me the freedom to fish whenever I want.
When you look at the things the OP says he wants to do, are you surprised that people assume he means to abuse the freedom he is asking for? Basically he says he doesn't want game developers protecting other players from him doing whatever he wants to do to them. I certainly don't think that anyone who wants freedom is only looking to abuse other players, but it's awfully naive to assume that nobody will. And allowing that changes a game from one thing to something else entirely. The whole game revolves around the meta-game of 'good players vs. bad players'. This is a lot of fun for the people who want to play 'cops and robbers', but nobody has figured out a way to make it equally enjoyable for the people who just want to play regular citizens.
It's fun for a robber to rob a liquor store. It's fun for a cop to chase the robber who just robbed the liquor store. Now how do we make it fun to operate a liquor store that gets robbed on a regular basis?
Wurm Online has the most freedom I've seen in a game, and because of it, 4chan will regularly host an event to invade the game and ruin it for everyone else. It has a free trial server now in order to divert that negative attention away, instead of a 'basic' account that let them into the regular servers to cause havok. When you have a game that lets you build anything anywhere, and change the world you your liking, there will always be someone who wants to block people in with fences and tear down forests to raise up gravel pits. Then the regular players have the "fun" in fixing it all once the griefers get bored with it.
Freedom to one person is abuse to the next, re-gard-o-less. There's plenty of non-4channers in that game who take delight in moving next to an established village in order to poach their resources and muck up their work. Happens all the time, and why?
~because if it can go wrong, it will, and it only takes one person to ruin the day of 100 others.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Making people think speed up the evolution process.
Over the years we had an extreme reaction from developers to players abusing their freedoms. Instead of working around the problem with solutions, they stripped the genre of its social essence, by treating players like potential criminals. Our games are virtual prisons. Every rule is imposed by design to prevent the early problems.
They took the shortcut. People kill each other, this is bad. Forbid them from attacking each other. Just like that, all their creative minds could come up with.
People are not using a certain content. Force them to use said content by linearly implementing a way to force them to follow the script.
Creating artificial pre-requisites, like "levels" and using those to garantee that players would be doing what the developers planned them to do.
Everything balanced around the clock. No gaps. Every kind of activity the player can do had to be scripted by the developer up front. This lead them to ultimatelly limit dozens of other activities, such as exploring. Now you dont explore at your own pace, when you want, where you want. Now you follow the developers path. You cant move away from said script, because the design will prevent you from entering an area, because you have not done the pre-required scripted content, you dont have the freedom to get in an area where you could die. Because dieing is bad, so they removed the ability of the player to be free, free to fuck himself up. By doing that, they made everyone's experience, the same.
Every possibility of interaction that could remotelly or partially go wrong, got removed. We cant do anything anymore.
Just run, use skills, click on the npcs, use items and thats it. Even what we can do, when we can do, where we can do GOT STRIPPED FROM US.
THEY EVEN STRIPPED FROM US THE ABILITY TO HAVE A UNIQUE GAME EXPERIENCE. Now if a game has a thousand players, every single one of those thousand players will have to DO THE SAME QUESTS, AT THE SAME LEVELS, SAME AREAS, WITH SIMILAR EQUIPMENT, UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS, WITH THE SAME RESULTS.
Nothing actually matters anymore. No wonder people complain about the lack of journey, the ammount of grind and the rush for the end game. In these games, END GAME is the only ressemblance of freedom we still have.
This way of solving problems. There is a tool that is essentially neutral, it can be used for good 90% of the time, but if it can be used 10% of the time for evil. OH MY FUCKING GOD, LETS REMOVE THE TOOL ALTOGETHER!!!
Are they really that stupid? Yes, they are. Are we that stupid to think that our freedom has to be limited and we have to behave like sheep and accept that, just because one guy found a negative way to use said freedom? Will we completelly strip said freedom 100%, without even trying to find a solution for the specific exceptional situation? "Oh, too much thinking, remove it, easier, cheaper, faster, the players dont care"
They repeat said process so much over the years... and look where we are right now! Look at the point we got. One player cant even jump, because he will jump on an object and use said object to prevent getting hit by monsters. BAD! REMOVE JUMP!
Do I have to keep citing these ridiculous examples of bad design to rape it into peoples brain?
There is a bad video on youtube? Ban the youtube. Russia did this recently.
There is a problem with the Internet infinite content. Introduce the Great Firewall of China.
People are using torrent indexers as tools to get their torrent pirated stuff, close the torrent indexer websites.
This kind of approach, with disregard to the side effects to individual rights and freedoms. People have to make a stand. Stop accepting taking in their asses with todays MMORPGs design.
Instead of
WORKING THEIR ASSES ON A SOLUTION THEY GO AND TAKE THE EASIER/CHEAPER SOLUTION WITH THE WORSE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS.
This happens in all areas of society.
And then we have this limited mentality of players who cant see beyond their noses, THAT THINK THERE ISNT ANOTHER WAY.
There is a way around each and every freedom mentioned. We, the players have found the solutions ourselfs for all the mentioned situations and posted over and over on this forum. IF WE DID, AND WE DID OVER AND OVER. At some point we will reach our limit in accepting the crap that has being pushed to us.
Only ignorant fools repplied with the idea that freedom itself is inerently bad, with a short thought, pessimistic, one sided, blind sided view of it. They cant think ahead of their noses, they only see "gank", "grief". Dont even realize they can use their heads to find a creative solution.
I honestly think you've never even played a game with as much personal freedom as you clamor for. Do us all a favor and try to get settled in the free trial server of Wurm Online and tell us about your general experiences with the 'neighbors'. You will have some horror stories. This is mainly due to the fact that it's *free*, and that attracts jackasses with no regard for others because of there being no risk of losing any kind of investment put into it.
You can keep screaming about how we are all short-sighted as to the true meaning behind all of this, but the fact is that you refuse to see the obvious flaws in "total freedom". People abuse it, and that's all it takes to convince others to stay away. It's the very reason why FFA-sandboxes are so niche, people just don't like dealing with those kinds of players, and would rather leave them to their own devices and play something else. Developers want a successful product, not one that caters to a select crowd of people that can "take the heat". Because the heat will *always* be there, do not give mankind more credit than it deserves. We wouldn't need police, jails and other institutions if real society was as logical as you claim an online one could be.
Add anonymity to the mix, like you get with *any* online game, and you get the people that scream into the mic on counterstrike, just to piss you off, going further with it. Open your eyes to the facts at hand - it does happen - it will happen - and it's not going to change without specific rulesets to balance out that fact. Total freedom is overrated, that is, unless you secretly *are* the guy screaming into a mic on your spare time. Anyone with a basic experience with these kinds of game will tell you this, and have been throughout this entire thread. Your wishful thinking is not going to make people magically behave, limitations will.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture